Including Embodied Carbon in Assessing Renovation Options for Industrial Heritage Buildings: A Review and Case Studies

Yidong Huang, Fan Wang (), Alex Vidal Hiscock, Jivantika Satyarthi and Harry Smith
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Yidong Huang: The Institute of Sustainable Building Design, School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK
Fan Wang: The Institute of Sustainable Building Design, School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK
Alex Vidal Hiscock: Arup, East West Building, 1 Tollhouse Hill, Nottingham NG1 5AT, UK
Jivantika Satyarthi: The Urban Institute, School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK
Harry Smith: The Urban Institute, School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 17, issue 1, 1-31

Abstract: Industrial buildings play vital roles in a society, from shaping the economic, technological, cultural, and social fabric of society to contributing to its growth, development, and resilience. Hence, often at the end of their lifespans, they are “preserved” for their historical value through renovation. Considerations for renovation often include their historical significance, structural integrity, adaptive reuse, social sustainability, financial viability, and environmental impacts. Among these considerations, the carbon emissions associated with a project are increasingly becoming a factor of relevance when a historical building is to be sensitively renovated so that it can continue to contribute to local sustainability. However, embodied carbon is often overshadowed by operational carbon and overlooked in the development of renovation options. This paper argues for the need to include embodied carbon in the consideration of any renovation process and for guidelines for doing so. The argument is built upon a systematic review of current practices in the renovation of industrial heritage buildings across selected representative countries from the Global South and the Global North, in the belief that the former could learn valuable lessons from the latter, which has more extensive experience in considering embodied carbon in such processes. The argument also shows the difference in policy between different countries and articulates how the inclusion of embodied carbon might support environmental targets in the Global South. Based on a quantitative comparison, this review explains why embodied carbon (EC) is missing in renovations of industrial heritage buildings in the Global South. This study estimates the proportion and value of EC within the total life cycle in renovations of industrial buildings to support the argument. Above all, a calculation using a standard life cycle assessment (LCA) tool (ISO14040 & 14044) applied to four successful examples and a quantitative comparison highlight the benefits of including embodied carbon in renovations of industrial buildings and the carbon savings in the Global South and further supports our argument.

Keywords: industrial heritage; renovation options; embodied carbon; quantitative comparison; Global South (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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