Assessing life cycle sustainability of building renovation and reconstruction: A comprehensive review of case studies and methods

To address the age and low efficiency of Europe's building stock, the European Union (EU) has focused on renovation strategies. However, recent studies suggest that demolishing and reconstructing a building in poor physical condition may be a more effective approach to achieving energy efficiency goals. Although a significant number of authors compare renovation and reconstruction scenarios, the majority of them focus primarily on the operational phase of a building and energy use, disregarding other relevant stages and indicators. Consequently, there is still no consensus on the conditions to choose between alternatives. Therefore, this systematic literature review of 44 articles aims to find patterns in methodological approaches within comparative studies that assess renovation and reconstruction scenarios and those that evaluate them isolated. To ensure articles incorporate the triple bottom line of sustainability, a Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) approach is adopted. Results indicate that the building scale is the most researched with Life Cycle Assessment (E-LCA) being the preferred method among authors, followed by cost analysis, with social aspects being often overlooked. Moreover, only a limited number of articles present a comparison between renovation and reconstruction at an early-stage design, among them the majority assess impacts related to global warming potential and conclude that renovation is preferable.