Building Resilience and Sustainability

This page provides links to studies and guides that answer two questions:

1. Why should you build sustainability and resilience into your heritage building?

2a. How do you build sustainability and resilience into your heritage building?

2b. How do you pay for it?

Why?

1. Research and Studies Making the Case

» Financial Measures to Encourage Heritage Development

» Climate Change And National Historic Sites

Article on the threat of climate change on Canadian National Historic Sites. Published by Canada’s Historic Places; includes links to other resources.

» Greening A Heritage Building (City of Vancouver)

Literature review and case study synthesis on the benefits of heritage building conservation and how sustainability-focused strategies may be applied to enhance both environmental performance and heritage conservation.

» Indigenous Peoples: Sustainable Development And Environmental Change (UNESCO)

Resource of articles and case studies that demonstrate the value of listening to indigenous peoples and communities for knowledge on climate change assessment and adaptation.

» Sustainable Development: World Heritage And Sustainable Development (UNESCO)

Discusses the policy adopted at the 2015 World Heritage Convention : Policy on the integration of a sustainable development perspective into the processes of the World Heritage Convention, and acknowledges the role that World Heritage must play in sustainable development.

» Sustainability And The Built Environment: Forging A Role For Heritage Conservation (Getty Conservation Institute)

Article in Spring 2011 edition of “Conservation Perspectives” making a case for the role that heritage conservation should play in sustainability planning. Includes calls to action to create an ‘Alternative Future for Heritage Conservation’.

How?

2a, Policies and Practical Guides as Examples

» New Life for Old Buildings (a green guide to conservation)

Vancouver Heritage Foundation publication with tips, tools and case studies for heritage conservation at both municipal planning and property owner levels.

» Energy Efficiency Act BC

Outlines BC Energy Efficiency Regulations for Windows, Glazing, Doors, Skylights approved in 2011.

» Building Resilience: Practical Guidelines For The Sustainable Rehabilitation Of Buildings In Canada

The document is a “sustainable building tool” that will enhance the readers understanding of the environmental benefits of heritage conservation and the strong inter-relationship between natural and built heritage conservation.

» Building Resilience: Select Excerpts

Building Resilience: Practical Guidelines for the Retrofit and Rehabilitation of Buildings in Canada serves as a “sustainable building toolkit” that will enhance understanding of the environmental benefits of heritage conservation and of the strong interrelationship between natural and built heritage conservation. Intended as a useful set of best practices, the guidelines in Building Resilience can be applied to existing and traditionally constructed buildings as well as formally recognized heritage places.
Read the full report here.

» Energy And Sustainability

Australia ICOMOS offers a toolkit of resources, including examples of policy guidelines for sustainability in heritage in different regions.

» Green Guide To Heritage Conservation (Manitoba Heritage Resources Branch)

This guide focuses on environmental sustainability, with a green building checklist to use when assessing the energy efficiency of your heritage property.

» Heritage & Sustainability

Vancouver Heritage Foundation; includes links to other resources and case studies.