Sustainable Building Conservation

FourContaining the questions

Douglas D Kent

Introduction

Global climate change and the conservation of non-renewable energy resources are widely held to be among the most pressing challenges facing humanity. In the United Kingdom, old buildings have become a particular focus for action to cut the use of fossil fuels. There are serious questions within the heritage sector, however, about how appropriate much of the resulting energy-saving work is. While perhaps suitable for modern buildings, it takes little account of the different needs of older properties. There is a concern of harm to both old buildings and their occupants’ health. Carbon reductions could also be less than expected.

A major difficulty until recently has been the lack of ...