[Report] The GBPN Defines the Concept of Deep Renovation

| SOUTH-EAST ASIASOUTH-EAST ASIA

The GBPN promotes a “deep” renovation of the existing building stock to help the building sector achieve significant global energy savings and plays its role in mitigating climate change. However, what does “deep” renovation mean? Do experts around the world use the same definition? This recent report “What is a Deep Renovation” seeks to harmonise and clarify a definition for deep renovation to help building a global knowledge dialogue and facilitate best practice sharing than can support better policy-making.

The acronym “DR” can mean a deep renovation, a deep retrofit, a deep refurbishment, and to a lesser extent, a deep reduction. And these expressions mean different things to different analysts. A standard renovation or refurbishment will often achieve energy savings ranging between 20% and 30% and sometimes less. However, as the GBPN research shows with a “deep” renovation, it is possible to reduce a building’s energy use by more than 75%. Thus, there is a need to find a common understanding and developing as much as consensus as possible.
For this purpose, the GBPN gathered top global experts in the field of building renovation to reflect upon a common definition of DR through two webinars, a questionnaire and a review process.

Initially, the project collected current global and local definitions and conditions of a “deep” renovation (DR). These elements were then presented to thirty international experts in a webinar, during which participants tried to formulate a definition of a DR. These opinions and findings were later integrated into a questionnaire that was sent to the same group of experts, targeting a new level of harmonization and clarification.