Selection of Core Indicators for the Sustainable Conservation of Built Heritage

ABSTRACT

This paper presents and discusses the selection of a set of core indicators for the sustainable conservation of built heritage. This core set of indicators was selected by following a two-step methodology: 1) first, a comparative analysis of indicators of two building sustainability assessment (BSA) tools with different approaches was performed by using content analysis to identify common priorities; 2) second, a selection of the indicators according to scale, stage of the life cycle, and coverage of core aspects for sustainable development, following the criteria established by the International Organization for Standardization. The results show that even if current methodologies have different structures, terminology, and priorities, they share common principles that promote a more sustainable built environment. However, by being mostly oriented to the intervention and operation phases, these methods do not have direct application as an assessment framework for the sustainable conservation of the built heritage. To overcome this situation, this research presents a concise set of indicators that can support the development of an assessment tool to ensure the sustainable conservation of existing buildings.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessment
• heritage
• indicators
• sustainability
• sustainable conservation

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the support granted by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), in the scope of the Doctoral Program Eco-Construction and Rehabilitation (EcoCoRe), to the PhD scholarship with the reference PD/BD/127853/2016, and the support of ISISE, from the UMinho, CERIS, from IST-UL, and of the Heritage & Architecture section, from AE-T-BK at TU Delft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [PD/BD/127853/2016].