Applying International Guidelines on Historic Building’s Retrofit in New Zealand: A Critical Context View

Rachel Paschoalin,Nigel Isaacs

doi:10.3390/heritage4040203

Abstract

Interest in the energy retrofit of historic buildings reflects the current drive to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. New Zealand (NZ), unlike Europe and USA, has no country-specific guidelines considering heritage conservation, energy efficiency, reduced carbon emissions and cost. The paper explores benefits to NZ from a policy and practice perspective from such procedures. The adoption of tailored retrofit guidelines would contribute to the national goal of reduced GHG emissions by 2050. The case study investigates the relevance and challenges of assessments such as heritage impact, life-cycle carbon assessment and life-cycle costing for historic building renovations. Through interviews with a range of experts, the results for hypothetical retrofits of a heritage building are evaluated. The interviews reveal how possible trade-offs among different assessment criteria (e.g., energy, cost, carbon footprint and heritage impact) are considered by different specialist groups, as well as exploring the benefits and barriers, and providing recommendations for future renovation guidance. The main findings highlight the importance of a life-cycle perspective and of conservation plans for heritage assessment. The experts all agreed that from a conservation perspective, there was no one energy retrofit solution that fits all building types and cases.

Highlights

Heritage 2021, 4, 3697–3711. https://The building sector globally is responsible for 36% of energy use and at least 30%of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per year [1]; if GHG emissions are not reduced climatic impacts are likely to be irreversible [2]
Despite many conservation challenges arising while energy renovating historic buildings, at the international level, ICOMOS has recognized the importance of cultural heritage supporting sustainable development of cities [3,12]
This paper explores the impact on the decision-making processes of heritage conservation specialists through provision of simulation model results of the energy, life cycle cost and life cycle carbon for a range of renovation options

Summary

Introduction

Heritage 2021, 4, 3697–3711. https://The building sector globally is responsible for 36% of energy use and at least 30%of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per year [1]; if GHG emissions are not reduced climatic impacts are likely to be irreversible [2]. There are opportunities from sensible retrofits of historic and heritage buildings to reduce GHG emissions and energy consumption [3,4,5,6,7,8]. Despite many conservation challenges arising while energy renovating historic buildings, at the international level, ICOMOS has recognized the importance of cultural heritage supporting sustainable development of cities [3,12]. The topic of historic retrofit has been widely investigated in the last decade from both technical and conservation sides; there is still limited discussion about the heritage significance assessment and its influence on the decision-making [11,16], while from a practice perspective energy retrofits are still limited by regulatory, social and technical barriers [17]

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Results

Conclusion