Carbon-neutral Existing Buildings Strategies

Abstract

Background: The world screams for carbon-neutral pledge every day. Existing buildings (EBs) are a good starting edge. EBs account for more than one-third of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and use of more than half of the world’s energy as reported in the 2020 Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction. Without evolving effective strategies to transform the EBs into carbon-neutral structures, there is no chance of confronting this huge adverse impact on the climate. A carbon neutral building does not waste energy, uses less water, and produces as much energy as it consumes or uses renewables as their energy resource. Objective: This study aims to build up a new, easy, and practical carbon-neutral audit (CNA) rating tool to put forward carbon-neutral existing buildings (CNEB) strategies to reduce the GHG effect. Methods: This study responds to this pledge call to lay down the strategies to retrofit existing structures into carbon-neutral buildings. Carbon-neutral potentials of an existing building are the guidance for the setup of CNEB strategies. Assessing the carbon-neutral potentials in an EB is rarely touched in the past literature. With the help of a CNA scheme, an easy scanning rating tool, a list of carbon-neutral potentials can be built up for the instigation of the CNEB strategies. Results: The findings established that using the above CNEB strategies, a total of energy savings in a range of 45-65% can be achieved. Conclusion: This high energy savings will attribute a carbon intensity reduction in the range of 25-35%, thus triggering a gateway to decarbonisation of the EBs.