Life cycle assessment and historic buildings: energy-efficiency refurbishment versus new construction in Norway

Abstract

ABSTRACT Refurbishment policies for the historic segment of the building stock must be carefully promoted in the process of addressing the transition to a low-emission society to avoid the loss of the values which make this heritage significant. This article presents and the results of a Norwegian life cycle assessment comparing the net climate benefits from the refurbishment of a residential building from the 1930s with the construction of a new building in accordance with modern building codes. The results show that a careful refurbishment of the historic building is favourable in a climate change mitigation perspective over a 60-year period of analysis. For the new building, it takes more than 50 years for the initial emissions from construction to be outweighed by the effects of lower in-use energy consumption. The results underline the significance of emissions from the use of materials in the refurbishment process and that residents play a critical part with respect to realising the expected energy savings. It is concluded that material use and user behaviour have a crucial impact on greenhouse gas emissions in a life cycle perspective and that the continued use of historic buildings should be advocated for in building codes and environmental policies.