1 The Building Stock and Traditional Building Principles: Sustainability Assessment for Historic Buildings

Resource efficiency in the built environment can contribute significantly to reducing carbon emissions. The building stock, in particular, offers immense potential, and methods for evaluating the energetic and overall ecological performance of buildings have therefore been gaining increasing attention. The first generation of assessment schemes evaluating the overall sustainability of buildings focused on new buildings, but further developments have extended the perspective to existing buildings, as well. Nevertheless, the specific requirements of historic buildings are not fully addressed in established systems such as BREEAM, LEED, DGNB Label, etc. The need to better integrate existing building quality as well as aspects of traditional building should be acknowledged in the assessment process. Adding a dimension to assessment schemes that focuses on aspects particularly relevant to historic buildings acknowledges that such buildings must be treated differently in terms of energetic refurbishment. Historic buildings, especially scheduled monuments, require a sensitive approach if the whole building and its structure is not to be endangered. The additional dimension addresses these requirements, balancing them against the demands of modern and efficient building standards. The proposal considers, for example, that construction should follow traditional building principles, that architecture must comply with heritage management requirements, that regional craftsmen and manufacturers should be employed, and that architecture should be adapted to the local and/or regional climate. Keywords: Building assessment, Sustainable building, Traditional building, Historic building