Industrialized district-level renovation of similar buildings in proximity: Environmental, economic, and renovation production implications
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: District-level renovation is a promising strategy to decarbonize the European Union’s building stock, yet the impact of using industrialized methods at scale remains underexplored. This research addresses this gap through analysis of a four-building district renovation in Estonia, using prefabricated facade elements. The study evaluates 16 renovation packages and three construction management scenarios to quantify the trade-offs between cost, project duration, embodied carbon (product and construction stages, A1-A5), and operational carbon (use stage, B6). The results reveal that the exterior finish material is the dominant driver of both cost and embodied carbon, with wooden cladding being the most economical and lowest-carbon option upfront. Moreover, the findings reveal a trade-off: the packages that deliver the best long-term operational performance do so at the cost of a higher embodied carbon footprint. Furthermore, the analysis of construction management demonstrates that accelerated schedules not only reduce prefabricated renovation duration by over 70% but also decrease overhead costs by up to 3.4% with a negligible impact on on-site emissions. Additionally, district-level procurement can reduce costs by up to 10% in materials and labor. This study provides an integrated analysis for assessing industrialized approach for district-level renovations. It offers actionable insights for stakeholders by demonstrating that the lowest-carbon material choices can also be the most cost-effective and that the optimal renovation strategy is not a single technical solution but a decision of balancing cost, carbon and time.
Source: Energy and Buildings
Language: English
Subfield: Building and Construction
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $4,260
OpenAlex ID: W4416746101