Retrofitting existing buildings is an opportunity to upgrade the energy performance of buildings for their ongoing life. It may well be a more sustainable option than demolishing an old building and rebuilding it.
But there are a number of barriers to retrofitting ,for example, cost and finance and tenure issues. The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) has launched the "Retrofit Playbook" which is a useful resource in developing retrofit policies and initiatives and which covers issues relating to carbon mitigation and energy efficiency.
I had the good fortune recently of being involved in the Chancery Lane Project Hackathon where ,together with property lawyers from other firms, we considered issues such as the circular economy and responses to climate change and collaboratively proposed draft clauses for insertion into property documents which reinforce sustainability objectives (on similar lines to the above). It is hoped that the clauses will be published next year more details to follow so please do watch this space.
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