Extract

Energy retrofitting yields great potential as a means to reduce the environmental loadings of buildings; however, the scope of these measures is often limited to the operational stage of buildings. This study contributes to the development of more comprehensive approaches to energy retrofitting by quantifying the life cycle energy loadings of different envelope solutions for Chilean mass social housing. Overall, the results suggest that increasing the thermal requirements of retrofitting solutions beyond current regulation can significantly increase the environmental performance of the existing building stock due to their capacity to reduce operational loadings without a major increase in embodied energy requirements.

Keywords: Life cycle assessment; embodied energy; energy retrofitting; mass housing.

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