Building a sustainable future: The role of historic buildings in tackling the climate crisis

Laura Baron
Additional contact information
Laura Baron: Purcell, UK

Journal of Building Survey, Appraisal & Valuation, 2025, vol. 14, issue 2, 172-186

Abstract: Britain’s built heritage plays a crucial role in Britons’ cultural identity, and their understanding of places and their histories. Now, more than ever, we need to preserve historic buildings in order to forge a sustainable and resilient future for our planet. However, climate action is often seen as at odds with heritage conservation, and many energy efficiency measures are perceived as ‘harmful’ to our historic buildings. The Heritage Building Retrofit Toolkit, described in this paper alongside case study examples, aims to challenge those perceptions. It sets out a nine-step methodology which starts from a position of knowledge, balances the risks and considers all opportunities as part of a ‘whole building approach’. The outcome is sensitively integrated solutions that safeguard the future of our heritage buildings, preparing them for a changing climate while reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.

Keywords: heritage; retrofit; sustainability; conservation; historic; climate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: R3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://hstalks.com/article/10148/download/ (application/pdf)
https://hstalks.com/article/10148/ (text/html)
Requires a paid subscription for full access.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aza:jbsav0:y:2025:v:14:i:2:p:172-186

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Building Survey, Appraisal & Valuation from Henry Stewart Publications
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Henry Stewart Talks ().