Heritage buildings' sustainability assessment framework

Heritage buildings by definition are specified to be preserved through ages as they are attributed as sustainable building practices of their construction time with regards to their correspondence to their contextual characteristics and function. Nowadays, in the framework of sustainable development, the objective of sustainability of heritage buildings is widely acknowledged both for ensuring the continuity of the descendant values as well as for maintaining the use of non-renewable resources consumed for the heritage buildings' practice. The present paper sets historical buildings and their restoration activities as a focal interest in building sustainability studies, given the fact that 30 % of EU-27 building-stock dates before 1945. To this end, sustainability aspects in restoration of heritage buildings are introduced, while a review of existing assessment methodologies with regard to their coverage of heritage building based construction activities' sustainability performance is conducted. The herein presented study aims to define a specifically developed approach and criteria to assess the sustainability performance of heritage buildings and their restoration activities.