Comparative Analysis of Current Guidance for the Evaluation of Building Retrofit Investments

The built environment must adapt to a rapidly changing context and, since buildings have relatively long lives, this must primarily be achieved through retrofitting the existing building stock rather than by replacing it. We therefore need robust approaches to evaluating the cost-effectiveness of retrofit investments.Some guidance for performing investment appraisals of building retrofit proposals is available for specific types of retrofit, for example, the economic evaluation procedure for energy systems in buildings in the form of the EN 15459 standard. In this preliminary study, three existing evaluation methods are reviewed and compared. On this basis, recommendations for the development of a robust, general approach to the financial and economic evaluation of building retrofits are made.