Establishing criteria for smart retrofitting decision-making for buildings

Abstract

Buildings are among the largest sources of carbon emissions, so their owners have been compelled to set stringent sustainability goals in response to the global call for carbon neutrality. Consequently, facility managers are pressed to make their buildings smarter through adopting greater value-for-money sustainability solutions. Besides the implementation of traditional energy-saving measures, retrofitting buildings with smart building (SB) features, known as ‘smart retrofitting’ (SR), has become a growing trend. However, there is still no known set of appropriate criteria for making decisions on SR. To fill this void, a study was undertaken, where a four-tier hierarchical framework of SR decision-making criteria has been established after a thorough literature search on the Web of Science database followed by an in-depth qualitative review and a focus group discussion. A total of 32 criteria were identified, which fall into five categories: (1) Financial; (2) Technical; (3) Human; (4) Environmental; and (5) Legal, safety, and security. A key finding is that it is not merely the post-retrofit performance but also the retrofitting process itself that plays an important part in SR decision-making. The identified criteria demonstrate that ‘smartness’ encompasses not only ‘energy efficiency’ but also a vast array of other technical and social factors. The broad scope portrayed by the criteria, which needs to be considered holistically, provides guidance to facility managers in making SR decisions. Future works for refining the SR decision-making framework are also outlined.

Adopting smart retrofits: a decision-making model and benchmarking criteria

“…(2021) and Peiris et al. (2023a, b, c, d), the primary focuses of SR are to reduce energy consumption, enhance efficiency, mitigate emissions, achieve cost savings and enhance human comfort, environment and safety. Accordingly, based on the intended outcomes of SRs, the governing factors for SR selection can be broadly grouped into three main attributes as follows: Energy saving (F1): Building managers should establish the energy-saving objectives and assess each energy-saving measure’s potential to help achieve the objectives before starting any SR projects.…”

“…, 2021; Peiris et al. , 2023a, b, c, d). Also, the lack of standards to benchmark the performance of SRs is crucial for facility managers in the decision-making of appropriate retrofits (Halmetoja and Lepkova, 2022).…”

“…Peiris et al. (2023a, b, c, d) established five criteria, including financial, technical, human, environmental, legal and safety, for making SR decisions. However, it does not provide a systematic approach to considering the relative importance of each criterion and the relationship between each criterion and the most suitable SR options in the Sri Lankan context.…”

“…As Peiris et al. (2023a, b, c, d) explained, SR can be defined as retrofitting existing building services in nonsmart buildings with smart features such as sensors, controllers, appliances and smart management. In this research, SR is considered an approach to converting existing buildings into advanced automated systems that could enhance energy savings, human comfort and environmentally friendly green attributes for sustainable monitoring and control of facilities.…”

“…, 2021; Peiris et al. , 2023a, b, c, d), holistic criteria for local context are yet to be developed. Therefore, the following objectives were set:Review the SRs for office buildings.Develop a decision-making model to facilitate the best selection of SRs for the Sri Lankan context.Establish metrics for benchmarking the performance of SRs.…”