The Preservation Green Lab at the National Trust for Historic Preservation has recently published their study The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse. Resolving many conflicted arguments, this study confirms that reusing and retrofitting existing buildings with an average level of energy performance almost always offers environmental savings over demolition and more energy-efficient new construction. The research provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the potential environmental impact reductions associated with building reuse. The Preservation Green Lab utilizes Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodology to compare reuse and renovations with new construction over the course of a 75-year life span. Continue reading for more.
The study examines four environmental impact categories that include climate change, human health, ecosystem quality and resource depletion amongst these six building typologies: single-family home, multifamily building, commercial office, urban village mixed-use building, elementary school, and warehouse conversion. The typologies used are found in Portland, Phoenix, Chicago and Atlanta – the four U.S. cities selected to represent a different climate zone.
Key findings of the study reveal “savings from reuse are between 4 and 46 percent over new construction when comparing buildings with the same energy performance level”.
