This whitepaper focuses on the tradeoff between operational savings and embodied carbon, which are resulting from retrofit activities. The research presented in this report marks the starting point to shed a light on the relevance of embodied-carbon emissions resulting from energetic retrofits. The use and implementation of low-carbon materials should be promoted and further research especially on low-carbon retrofit solutions and regional & use-type specific benchmarks is needed. In addition, the authors identified a need to enhance the availability and robustness of EPD data for retrofit materials since this forms the basis for all further analytical steps in our sector.

This whitepaper is published by IIÖ and the CRREM initiative with the support of Hines (a global real estate investment, development, and property manager.), EPRA (The European Public Real Estate Association is a non-profit organisation representing the interests of European listed real estate companies) and UNEP FI (The United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative).