Environmental and economic optimization and prioritization tool-kit for residential building renovation strategies with life cycle approach

Abstract

The most recent regulations, as well as the scientific studies, remark the importance of the evaluation of the entire life cycle on building renovations, relative to the environmental impact and economic feasibility, making the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) the prioritizing analysis. The objective of the study is to develop a simplified methodology for the environmental and economic assessment of residential building renovations with life cycle approach. For this, a script-based tool-kit is developed: the first tool optimizes the thickness of envelope insulation based strategies; the second tool is for the prioritization of strategies by assessing their environmental performance and economic feasibility. In order to follow the objective, the development of the two tools is presented: both tools follow a parallel scheme where the input parameters are required by an excel file and the calculation script provides the results automatically by exporting the results excel file. The evaluation provides the quantification of the relative environmental improvement with the net energy ratio (NER), and the economic feasibility by the financial indicator of internal rate of return (IRR). The tool-kit is applied in a case study of a multifamily residential building. The results show, on the one hand, that the usability of the tool-kit can be determinant in the decision-making of stakeholders; and in the other hand, the importance of carrying out a dynamic assessment, taking into account the variation of the results caused by the uncertain parameters that differ in time. Moreover, the tool-kit can assist the development of cost-effective decarbonisation strategies.