As part of the "Drawing the baseline" FuturHist work package, this report presents the results of Task 1.1 focused on the identification of barriers. A survey was conducted to assess the main barriers to energy efficiency in historic buildings. Feedback was gathered from various types of stakeholders engaged with energy retrofitting of historic buildings: practitioners, building owners, and public authorities. Almost 150 survey responses were collected from 25 different countries across Europe. Analysis of the data shows several trends within different stakeholder sectors and regions. Additional in-depth feedback was received through a structured interview process and “practitioner form” targeting key individuals from the demo case countries. Twenty-five respondents from Spain, Sweden, Poland, and the United Kingdom were interviewed, while six individuals were selected to complete the “practitioner form.” A major barrier identified by most respondents to the survey and interviews was the current state of policies and legislation¬. In particular, current policies and legislation regarding energy efficiency are created with new construction in mind and significantly disadvantage historic buildings. Building performance targets are not always applicable for historic buildings, yet they are still largely obligated to adhere to them. Shortcomings in funding, awareness, traditional skills, and a lack of best-practice examples are also identified as significant barriers. The “practitioner forms” showed that while there are clear national and international guidelines and standards for practitioners to perform heritage value assessments and energy value assessments, these require some refinement to address issues with applicability and complexity. Of primary importance in addressing these barriers is a more nuanced approach in policy and legislation that better takes into account the unique conditions and requirements of historic buildings as well as the local contexts of the countries they are found. This could either mean a new set of policies specifically designed for - and only applicable to - historic buildings; or a reworking of existing legislation to better accommodate their realities. The best solutions would take a holistic approach and address as much as possible all notable concerns voiced by the stakeholder respondents; improving resources for training, funding, and awareness raising to improve public opinion around the inherent sustainability and energy efficiency of historic buildings. By making progress across these areas, the overall situation for energy retrofits of historic buildings would be greatly improved.
Hesse et al. (Thu,) studied this question.