Environmental Performance Measures to Assess Building Refurbishment from a Life Cycle Perspective

Helena Nydahl, Staffan Andersson, Anders P. Åstrand and Thomas Olofsson
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Helena Nydahl: Department of Applied Physics and Electronics, Umeå University, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden
Staffan Andersson: Department of Applied Physics and Electronics, Umeå University, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden
Anders P. Åstrand: Department of Applied Physics and Electronics, Umeå University, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden
Thomas Olofsson: Department of Applied Physics and Electronics, Umeå University, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 2, 1-16

Abstract: Energy efficiency investments in existing buildings are an effective way of reducing the environmental impact of the building stock. Even though policies in the European Union and elsewhere promote a unilateral focus on operational energy reduction, scientific studies highlight the importance of applying a life cycle perspective to energy refurbishment. However, life cycle assessment is often perceived as being complicated and the results difficult to interpret by the construction sector. There is also a lack of guidelines regarding the sustainable ratio between the embodied and accumulated operational impact. The scope of this study is to introduce a life cycle assessment method for building refurbishment that utilizes familiar economic performance tools, namely return on investment and annual yield. The aim is to use the introduced method to analyze a case building with a sustainability profile. The building was refurbished in order to reduce its operational energy use. The introduced method is compatible with a theory of minimum sustainable environmental performance that may be developed through backcasting from defined energy and GHG emissions objectives. The proposed approach will hopefully allow development of sustainable refurbishment objectives that can support the choice of refurbishment investments.

Keywords: building refurbishment; Life Cycle Assessment (LCA); Return on Investment (ROI); Annual Yield (AY); Environmental Performance Measure (EPM); Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reduction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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