Integrated sustainable building renovation: towards a position paper by an eaee working group

An estimated 35% of European buildings are over 50 years old, which makes renovation activities urgent to achieve European and international goals. Existing buildings are indeed inefficient in energy consumption, and renovating them will save energy and improve the inhabitants' quality of life. Renovation of existing buildings and urban spaces provides an opportunity to enhance not only energy but also structural performance. As part of building requalification for energy efficiency, structural safety should also be considered. Additionally, building renovations provide an excellent opportunity to create a safe, sustainable, and resilient built environment, as supported by the New European Bauhaus initiative. Hence, implementing sustainable and life cycle thinking-based retrofitting interventions can minimise costs and impacts associated with production, construction and other life cycle phases (such as maintenance and end-of-life stage) and simultaneously ensure adaptability to climate change and future occupant demands. Thus, under the mandate of the European Association of Earthquake Engineering, a Working Group focused on "Combined seismic and environmental upgrading of existing buildings" organised a workshop as a forum for an ad hoc assembly of knowledge on this topic. As part of this workshop, state-of-the-art combined methods and techniques were presented, and visions have been discussed based on information from European scientific community expertsin the Working Group regarding promising integrated techniques for environmental refurbishment and seismic retrofitting from their countries. The final objective of such an activity is to draft a position paper that aims to disseminate technical information about integrated techniques, solutions and methods for retrofitting European building stock that can increase energy efficiency and decrease structural vulnerability while significantly reducing environmental impact and lowering maintenance costs, and increasing adaptability and resilience for future climate changes and needs.