Existing Building Renovation: A Review of Barriers to Economic and Environmental Benefits

The renovation of old buildings provides an important approach to energy saving and emission reduction with low economic costs. The current important issue remains how to determine the optimal cost-effective technical path for a specific project, although there are a large number of retrofit technologies to choose from. Based on a systematic perspective, this paper conducts a quantitative analysis of the environmental and economic benefits of building renovation, and compares and studies the role and challenges of different countries in the process of recycling waste building materials and technological innovation to extend the life of buildings. Through the use of VOSviewer, 1402 papers from the Web of Science core collection database were visualized, analyzed, and deduced, and the research context and development trends of architectural renovation were sorted out and presented. Finally, this article discusses the status and application process of existing building renovation technologies, including the current obstacles that need to be resolved. It puts forward a vision for the future development of building renovation, emphasizing that top-down guidance is essential to future carbon neutral goals.