Technical, Financial, Social Barriers and Challenges in Deep Building Renovation: Integration of Lessons Learned from the H2020 Cluster Projects

Abstract

With a low rate of new building construction and insufficient rate of existing building renovation, there is the need for stepping up the pace of building renovation with ambitious performance targets to achieve EU climate change policies. However, effective technologies alone cannot solve the low renovation rate of existing buildings in Europe that is hindering the reaching of EU-wide targets. A workshop was held at the Sustainable Place Conference 2018 to present successful experiences with an integrative approach from H2020 innovation actions (4RinEU, P2ENDURE, Pro-GET-OnE, MORE-CONNECT) aiming at improving building energy performance through deep renovation. This article presents the outcomes of the joint workshop and interactive discussion, by focusing on the different technical, financial and social added values, barriers and challenges in building renovation as well as on the identification of open questions to address future innovation opportunities.

Wooden Facade Renovation and Additional Floor Construction for Suburban Development in Finland

“…It is worth mentioning here the main barriers and challenges encountered particularly in deep renovation projects as follows (Table 1) [56,57].…”

Assessing the relevance of barriers to energy efficiency implementation in the building and transport sectors in eight European countries

“…Economic barriers refer to difficulties in accessing credit, insufficient and unstable available funding, high risk for investors and financial institutions ( Sorrell et al, 2004 ; Thollander et al, 2010 ; Galarraga et al, 2011 ; Castellazzi et al, 2017 ; Gupta and Gregg, 2017 ). Institutional barriers are related to political obstruction, conflicting guidelines in the governance structure, and lack of policy coordination ( Langlois-Bertrand et al, 2015 ; Bithas and Nijkamp, 2017 ; D’Oca et al, 2018 ; Cattaneo, 2019 ). Behavioural barriers refer to low awareness about energy efficiency and non-energy benefits, lack of information or behavioural anomalies in processing information, lack of trust, customer attitude, lifestyle, etc ( Lah, 2015 ; Frederiks et al, 2015 ; Gupta and Gregg, 2017 ; Labanca and Bertoldi, 2018 ; Gillingham and Tsvetanov, 2018 ; Biresselioglu et al, 2018 ; Ebrahimigharehbaghi et al, 2019 ).…”

“…Behavioural barriers are related to people consumption practices, misperception of economic returns, different purchasing choice, limited trust in local and national public administration ( Gupta and Gregg, 2017 ). Those barriers are most of the time linked to knowledge gaps which both affect energy efficiency improvement ( Schleich, 2004 ; Gerarden et al, 2017 ; Al-addous and Albatayneh, 2020 ) and energy-efficient technologies implementation ( D’Oca et al, 2018 ). These reduce the awareness of individuals on energy savings and limit the diffusion of a culture of saving both at individual and community level.…”

Wooden Extra Stories in Concrete Block of Flats in Finland as an Ecologically Sensitive Engineering Solution

“…The issue becomes even more important when it is considered that there are over 60,000 flats in Finland, where nearly half of the Finnish population lives [11]. Renovating an apartment by increasing accessibility and energy efficiency is a slow and costly process, requires a lot of capital and government subsidies, and the intensity of fieldwork distracts building occupants and residents living near the construction site [17][18][19][20].…”