Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment in Building Energy Retrofitting; A Review

This paper aims to review the publications in the field of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) of building energy retrofitting. The main focus is to demonstrate the methodological assumptions, limitations and advancements in recent publications to provide a basis for future research works through a critical review on adopted methods and research gaps in the literature. Energy retrofitting of existing buildings is a promising action plan to reduce the environmental impacts of the built environment due to the low energy performance in existing buildings and low new construction rate in the developed countries. Taking an LCSA approach helps to have comprehensive analyses of the costs and benefits of Energy Retrofitting Projects (ERPs) over the building life cycle. Performing LCSA in ERPs is a challenging task because of the extensive required data analysis, uncertain parameters, complicated assessment methods etc. These challenges indicate the importance of a critical review study to understand how LCSA is applied in energy retrofit projects. The publications are analyzed in four categories which are LCA, LCC, S-LCA and multi-dimensional life cycle studies. Finally, limitations and advancements in the reviewed papers are highlighted and discussed to be considered in future studies.