Print Email Facebook Twitter Upgrade or replace?: The effect of the EPBD on the choice between improvement or replacement Title Upgrade or replace?: The effect of the EPBD on the choice between improvement or replacement Author Thomsen, A.F. Van der Flier, C.L. Faculty OTB Research Institute for the Built Environment Department OTB Onderzoek Date 2010-07-01 Abstract What is better: improvement or replacement by new construction? The choice between life cycle extension and replacement of existing buildings is at itself a vital but very difficult decision, involving a wide range of different aspects and affecting several contrary and often conflicting interests. The emerging ecological awareness of the building and real estate trade tends up to now mainly towards improving the energy efficiency of buildings. The introduction of the European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) is intended to seduce proprietors of existing buildings to upgrade their stock to the green top of the label range. Especially in the case of older building, the question will raise to what extent the investments needed to achieve that level countervail replacement by new construction. In the past decade we studied the decision making on demolition in the Netherlands. Based on the available literature and statistical data we analysed the actual practice in the Netherlands and built a conceptual framework for further comparative and case study research. In addition to this research we placed the choice between improvement and replacement in a sustainable context, made an inventory of existing literature about comparative findings, analysed the outcomes and compared them with our own findings. Overlooking the results so far we concluded that life cycle extension by renovation and reuse of existing stock is generally more sustainable, more effective and more efficient as replacement by new construction. But how valid is this conclusion under different circumstances, in particular substantially aggravated energy performance requirements? To answer this question, our paper distinguishes the most determining variables for the decision-making, discusses the possible outcomes and concludes with recommendations for the decision-making process. Subject decision-makingdemolitionenergy efficiencyenergy performancehousing marketlife cycle extensionrenovationtenure To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:7b5add8a-7c26-46b3-a3aa-c5ef643a6485 Source 22nd European Network for Housing Research International Conference; ENHR 2010 "Crossing into the 2nd Decade of the 3rd Millennium", 4-7 July 2010, Istanbul, Turkey Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type conference paper Rights (c) 2010 Delft University of Technology Files PDF 257321.pdf 252.21 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:7b5add8a-7c26-46b3-a3aa-c5ef643a6485/datastream/OBJ/view