Built Religious Heritage, Circular Economy, and Life-Cycle Assessment: A Case Study of a Convent Property in the Province of Quebec, Canada

Étienne Berthold, Kim Pawliw () and Sarah Righi
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Étienne Berthold: Department of Geography, Laval University, Pavillon Abitibi-Price, 2405 Rue de la Terrasse, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada
Kim Pawliw: Department of Geography, Laval University, Pavillon Abitibi-Price, 2405 Rue de la Terrasse, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada
Sarah Righi: Écobâtiment, 870 Avenue de Salaberry, Office 224, Québec, QC G1R 2T9, Canada

Energies, 2025, vol. 18, issue 10, 1-30

Abstract: When it comes to the circular economy, studies devoted to religious built heritage focus mainly on the interest of the adaptive reuse of buildings, e.g., recycling a building for new contemporary uses. The present study proposes to go a step further by deploying, for the first time in the literature, a life-cycle assessment (LCA) to a monastery-type religious building located in the province of Quebec, Canada. To this end, this study takes into account the embodied and operational energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the building’s entire life cycle, from its construction, in 1907, to the rehabilitation scenario currently under analysis. It also compares this scenario to a new building to determine the best option from an environmental point of view. The article concludes with the importance of using LCA in the context of religious buildings. It also calls for qualitative factors to be taken into account, which could enhance the results of the LCA by better integrating the precepts of the circular economy, in particular the attitudes and coping strategies of occupants with regard to operational energy consumption.

Keywords: circular economy; life-cycle assessment (LCA); historical religious buildings; adaptive reuse (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: 2025
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