Renovating the Existing Buildings Environment through the Combination of Circular economy and the Add-ons’ strategy

The actual investment gap in the renovation sector is due to the fact that high investments are required up-front, generally characterised by a high degree of risk and long payback times.

Sustainable approaches based upon linear economy principle are inadequate to effectively answer to the energy emergency of the existing buildings: a shift towards circular models is urgent.

REBECCA aims at demonstrating the attractiveness of circular, concerted and innovative actions capable of unlocking public and private funds, fill the energy efficiency investment gap and ultimately contribute to re-launch the construction and renovation market.

To do so, the research looks at the residential building stock and develops renovation strategies and techniques based upon Circular models for Renovation (CiR) and Circular Add-ons (CiA), intended as one (or a set of) volumetric additions – like aside or façade addictions, rooftop extensions or even an entire new building construction - that increase the real estate residual value of the existing buildings thanks to significant energy and architectural transformations.

Through a case-study based approach, REBECCA will prove that building renovations can be achieved at zero cost (through self-financing real estate models), zero waste (with virtuous circular waste/material management paths) and zero energy (by reducing the energy consumptions and integrating renewable energy sources).

In synthesis, REBECCA is proposing to introduce a new paradigm of circularity in the building renovation practice, which looks at reducing the pay-back time of the interventions, strengthening the key investors’ confidence, increasing quality and attractiveness of the existing buildings’ stock and, finally, reaching a concrete market acceleration towards the target of carbon zero footprint for the European built environment.