• About
    • What We Do
    • Membership
    • Our Advocacy
    • Newsletter
    • Donate
    • Board of Directors
    • Staff
    • Plans and Reports
    • Sponsors
  • Events & Activities
    • Heritage BC Conference 2023
    • BC Heritage Awards
    • Heritage Week 2023
    • Dates to Know
  • Learning Centre
    • Heritage 101
    • Advocacy
    • Accessibility for Historic Places
    • Climate & Sustainability
    • Heritage Place Conservation
    • Heritage Policy & Legislation
    • Homeowners
    • Intangible Cultural Heritage
    • Non-For-Profit Organizations
    • Reconciliation
    • Webinars On-Demand
  • Cultural Maps
    • Mapping Heritage
    • Submerged Heritage Resources
    • Columbia Basin Region Heritage Places
    • Francophone Historic Places Map
    • Chinese Canadian Historic Places Map
    • Japanese Canadian Historic Places
    • South Asian Canadian Map
    • War Monuments and Memorials Map
  • Funding
    • Heritage Legacy Fund
    • Government Funded Grants
    • Climate Disaster Response Fund
    • Funding Opportunities
    • Additional Funding Resources
    • Grant Writing Webinar
  • News
  • Professional Development
    • Educational Opportunities
    • Job Hunting Resources
    • Submit a Job
    • Job Board
    • Annual Conference
    • Professional Organizations
  • Contact
  • Membership
  • Donate
  • Newsletter
Heritage BC
Membership Donate Newsletter
  • About

    About

    • What We Do
    • Membership
    • Our Advocacy
    • Newsletter
    • Donate
    • Board of Directors
    • Staff
    • Plans and Reports
    • Sponsors
  • Events & Activities

    Events & Activities

    • Heritage BC Conference 2023
    • BC Heritage Awards
    • Heritage Week 2023
    • Dates to Know
  • Learning Centre

    Learning Centre

    • Heritage 101
    • Advocacy
    • Accessibility for Historic Places
    • Climate & Sustainability
    • Heritage Place Conservation
    • Heritage Policy & Legislation
    • Homeowners
    • Intangible Cultural Heritage
    • Non-For-Profit Organizations
    • Reconciliation
    • Webinars On-Demand
  • Cultural Maps

    Cultural Maps

    • Mapping Heritage
    • Submerged Heritage Resources
    • Columbia Basin Region Heritage Places
    • Francophone Historic Places Map
    • Chinese Canadian Historic Places Map
    • Japanese Canadian Historic Places
    • South Asian Canadian Map
    • War Monuments and Memorials Map
  • Funding

    Funding

    • Heritage Legacy Fund
    • Government Funded Grants
    • Climate Disaster Response Fund
    • Funding Opportunities
    • Additional Funding Resources
    • Grant Writing Webinar
  • News
  • Professional Development

    Professional Development

    • Educational Opportunities
    • Job Hunting Resources
    • Submit a Job
    • Job Board
    • Annual Conference
    • Professional Organizations
  • Contact
  • Heritage 101
    • Heritage Quick Studies
    • Definitions and Heritage FAQs
    • Organizations to Know
  • Advocacy
    • A Guide to Making a Case for Heritage
    • Election Resources
    • Reports : Heritage Conservation in BC
    • State of Heritage: Provincial Roundtables
    • Heritage Week
  • Accessibility for Historic Places
  • Climate & Sustainability
    • Building Resilience and Sustainability
    • Climate Adaptation : Making A Case Resource Guide
    • Climate Adaptation: Framework and Implementation
    • Seismic Risk & British Columbia’s Historic Streetscapes
  • Heritage Place Conservation
    • Heritage Conservation Tools: Resource Guides
      • Community Heritage Commissions
      • Community Heritage Register
      • Heritage Conservation Areas
      • Heritage Designation
      • Heritage Revitalization Agreements
    • Conservation in BC : Reports and Factsheets
    • Heritage Real Estate
      • Insuring Heritage Properties
    • Publications on Heritage Place Conservation Practices
  • Heritage Policy & Legislation
    • Heritage Legislation in BC
    • Local Government: Library of Source Documents
    • Heritage Conservation Tools: Resource Guides
  • Homeowners
    • Building Code, Heritage Standards & Laws
    • Heritage Designation
    • Heritage Professionals
    • Energy Improvements & Sustainability
    • Funding Opportunities
    • Insurance
    • Materials, Construction & Design
    • Heritage Building Maintenance
    • Safety & Hazardous Materials
  • Intangible Cultural Heritage
    • Intangible Cultural Heritage: A Resource Guide
    • ICH: Creating a Community-Based Inventory
  • Non-For-Profit Organizations
    • Organizational Capacity Building
    • Heritage Tourism
    • A Compendium of Tips and Information for Governance, Management and NFP Operations
  • Reconciliation
    • Indigenous Cultural Heritage
    • Setting the Bar: A Reconciliation Guide for Heritage
      • 1. Heritage and Reconciliation Pledge
      • 2. Acknowledging Land and People
      • 3. Celebrating Days of Recognition and Commemoration
      • 4. With a Commitment to Learn
      • 5. Committing to Strategic Organizational Diversity
      • 6. Mission-Making Room for Reconciliation
      • 7. Possession, Interpretation, Repatriation and Cultural Care
      • 8. Shared Decision Making
      • 9. Statements of Significance and other heritage planning documents
      • 10. Heritage Conservation Tools, Local Government Act
    • Racism: Do Not Let the Forgetting Prevail
      • Erasure 2.0: Gatekeepers
      • Why should we remember?  The legacy of remembrance
      • Racism is like an addiction
      • Black Lives Do Matter
      • The Powerful Position of Learning
      • Beyond Acknowledgement to Diversity and Inclusion
      • Erasure: A Statement on Racism, Inclusivity and Equity
      • Taking Action: resources for diversity and inclusion
  • Webinars On-Demand
  • Learning Centre
  • Climate & Sustainability
  • Climate Adaptation : Making A Case Resource Guide

Climate Adaptation: Comparison: Rehabilitation/Existing vs Demolition/New-Build

Making a case to leverage existing and historic buildings for zero net carbon

5. Comparison: Rehabilitation/Existing vs Demolition/New-Build

Every year in the United States, an estimated 1 billion square feet of buildings are demolished and replaced with new construction, a statistic that accompanies the replacement of one-quarter of today’s existing building stock between 2005 and 2030.13

Estimates for Canada and British Columbia are not dissimilar, to scale.

A study conducted in 2011 by the Preservation Green Lab, National Trust for Historic Preservation, confirmed that building reuse almost always offers environmental savings over demolition and new construction when comparing buildings of similar size and functionality.13

Accompanied by careful consideration for material selection and efficient design strategies for reuse, retrofitting existing buildings with appropriate energy upgrades offers the most substantial emissions reductions over time and is an option for immediate climate action. The study, which compared a variety of building typologies in a range of USA locations, confirmed a 4-46% in savings for reuse compared to new construction for buildings of the same energy performance level.

Reusing existing buildings can provide communities with an opportunity to avoid unnecessary carbon outlays and a means of achieving near-future carbon reduction goals.13

The impact of savings in reuse at the individual scale may reap minimal benefits, however, the impact of these savings at a city scale is substantial. Scaling up the benefits of carbon savings for building reuse is a known way to meet carbon reduction targets.

The most impactful changes for building reuse and retrofit are in areas where coal is the dominant energy source and where the environment experiences extreme climate variations.

New “energy-efficient” buildings can take between 10-80 years to overcome the negative climate change impacts created during the construction process for a building that is 30% more efficient than an average-performing existing building.13

Carbon Reduction Potential Graph
Carbon reduction potential during project development stages. Advancing Net Zero, WGBC, RAMBOLL and C40 Cities. Bringing Embodied Carbon Upfront: Coordinated action for the building and construction sector to tackle embodied carbon. (p.20).

[13] Preservation Green Lab. The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse. National Trust for Historic Preservation, 2011.

Navigate to the next pages

Setting the Bar | Governor's Awards 2022 Recipient
Join Heritage Week 2023
NEW! Homeowner Resources

Support Us

Membership Donate
Heritage BC

604-417-7243

PO Box 846
Ladysmith, BC
V9G 1A6

Connect with Us

© 2023 Heritage BC.
Website by SplitMango

As an organization of provincial scope, Heritage BC recognizes that its members, and the local history and heritage they seek to preserve, occupy the lands and territories of B.C.’s Indigenous peoples. Heritage BC asks its members and everyone working in the heritage sector to reflect on the places where they reside and work, and to respect the diversity of cultures and experiences that form the richness of our provincial heritage.