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There is profound demand for higher skills and expertise in retrofitting the existing building stock of Europe. The delivery of low- or nearly zero-energy retrofits is highly dependent on technical expertise, adoption of new materials, methods of construction and innovative technologies. Future Irish national building regulations will adopt the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive vision of retrofitting existing buildings to higher energy efficiency standards. Construction industry stakeholders are key for the achievement of energy performance targets. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to assess the attitudes, approaches and experiences of Irish construction professionals regarding energy efficient buildings, particularly nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEBs).

Data were collected through a series of quantitative and qualitative methods, including a survey, a workshop and detailed interviews with professionals in the retrofit industry. The structure of this approach was informed by preliminary data and information available on the Irish construction sector.

There is a substantial amount of ambiguity and reluctance among the professionals in reaching the Irish nZEB targets. The growing retrofit industry demonstrates low-quality auditing and pre/post-retrofit analysis. Basic services and depth of retrofits are compromised by project budgets and marginal profits. Unaligned value supply chain, poor interaction among nZEB professionals and fragmented services are deterrents to industry standardisation.

This study will enable construction industry stakeholders to make provisions for overcoming the barriers, gaps and challenges identified in the practices of the retrofit projects. It will also inform the formulation of policies that drive retrofit uptake.

This study has implications for understanding the social barriers existing in retrofit projects. Support from clients/owners has a diverse impact on energy performance and retrofit decisions. Community-based initiatives are key to unlock the promotion of nZEBs.

This paper provides an overview of current activities of retrofit professionals and analyses the barriers, gaps and challenges in the industry.

Smart manufacturing is revolutionizing the manufacturing industry by shifting the focus from traditional manufacturing to a more intelligent, interconnected and responsive system. Despite being the backbone of the economy and despite the government’s efforts in supporting and encouraging the transformation to smart manufacturing, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have been struggling to transform their operations. This study aims to identify the challenges for SMEs’ transformation and the benefits they can get from this transformation, following a systematic review of existing literature.

A systematic review of existing literature has been performed to identify the peer-reviewed journal articles that focus on smart manufacturing for SMEs. First, a comprehensive list of keywords relevant to the review questions are identified. Second, Scopus and Web of Science databases were then used to search for articles, applying filters for English language and peer-reviewed status. Third, after manually assessing abstracts for relevance, 175 articles are considered for further review and analysis.

The benefits and challenges of SMEs’ transformation to smart manufacturing are identified. The identified challenges are categorized using the Smart Industry Readiness Index (SIRI) framework. Further, to address the identified challenges and initiate the SME’s transition toward smart manufacturing, a framework has been proposed that shows how SMEs can start their transition with minimum investment and existing resources.

Several studies have concentrated on understanding how smart manufacturing enhances sustainability, productivity and preventive maintenance. However, there is a lack of studies comprehensively analyzing the challenges for smart manufacturing adoption for SMEs. The originality of this study lies in identifying the challenges and benefits of smart manufacturing transformation and proposing a framework as a roadmap for SMEs' smart manufacturing adoption.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a knowledge elicitation strategy to elicit and compile home energy retrofit knowledge that can be incorporated into the development of an intelligent decision support system to help increase the uptake of home energy retrofits. Major problems accounting for low adoption rates despite well-established benefits are: lack of information or information in unsuitable and usable format for decision making by homeowners. Despite the important role of expert knowledge in developing such systems, its elicitation has been fraught with challenges.

Using extensive literature review and a Delphi-dominated data collection technique, the relevant knowledge of 19 industry experts, selected based on previously developed determinants of expert knowledge and suitable for decision making was elicited and compiled. Boolean logic was used to model and represent such knowledge for use as an intelligent decision support system.

A combination of comprehensive knowledge elicitor training, Delphi technique, semi-structured interview, and job shadowing is a good elicitation strategy. It encourages experts to describe their knowledge in a natural way, relate to specific problems, and reduces bias. Relevant and consensus-based expert knowledge can be incorporated into the development of an intelligent decision support system.

The consensus-based and relevant expert knowledge can assist homeowners with decision making and industry practitioners and academia with corroboration and enhancement of existing knowledge. The strategy contributes to solving the knowledge elicitation challenge.

No previous study regarding a knowledge elicitation strategy for developing an intelligent decision support system for the energy retrofit industry exists.

This research paper is a literature review of the existing building retrofitting process. It proposes studying the functional, technical, and organizational issues of the green retrofit process. The purpose of this paper is to expand the domain of design framework for retrofitting existing buildings.

The paper provides a review of the model-based design process from enrollment to evaluation stages representing the green retrofitting process in selected publications. The paper opted to review the Green Retrofit Design (GRD) process model for achieving a systematic design model of GRD development in the future.

Functional and maintenance issues are mainly for new buildings, also in the field for renovation and demolishing. Publications also show that environmental, social, and technical issues are often examined separately in the decision process of GRD. Papers in the facility management scale would concentrate more on organization/legal issues. Publications with questionnaire design are devoted to the usage on life-cycle assessment on existing building, but not yet on the stakeholder management and design process and related issues.

The achievement of the study is to provide a new framework of design approach that is significant to the theoretical research, education, communication, and practical works in terms of GRD development.

The paper not only achieves a specific sequence of practical approaches, including awareness of problems, conceptual development, and design embodiment, to meet design objectives, but also conforms to academic practice-based research of creative design taking on GRD practice.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the barriers preventing investment in the re-use of low-grade multi-storey building stock in order to identify attributes that determine whether an existing building is suitable for retrofitting.

Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with key industry practitioners to investigate existing practices and barriers facing low-grade building retrofits and what “ideal” multi-storey building features represent a successful investment opportunity.

The findings showed that tenant commitment is necessary before any project goes ahead and that there exist many barriers influencing the investment decision. These include: high levels of asbestos found in existing buildings; changes in the National Construction Code necessitating enhanced fire safety and disability access; heritage listing; lack of awareness; overestimation of costs involved on simple and effective energy efficiency upgrades and change in tenant demands towards modern and efficient open plan offices. Many low-grade structures are privately owned inherited assets where the owners lack the expertise and capital to undertake retrofitting effectively.

The study is focused on the Adelaide CBD in South Australia but the findings are relevant to other Australian cities.

There is room in the market for more positive and influential schemes such as the Green Building Fund that encourage more energy efficiency upgrading of these buildings.

The greater occurrence of retrofitting and re-use of older buildings, rather than demolition and rebuilding, has advantages with regard to reducing the impact of buildings on the environment and promoting sustainability.

The research has indicated certain features of older buildings which render them as suitable candidates for retrofitting and refurbishment.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed appraisal of the quality of domestic retrofits.

This paper presents the results of technical surveys on 51 retrofits undertaken before, during and after the retrofits.

Failures are observed to be endemic and characterised into five themes: 72 per cent showed moisture issues pre-retrofit, 68 per cent had moisture risks post-retrofit, 62 per cent did not adopt a whole house approach, 16 per cent showed inadequate quality assurance protocols and 64 per cent showed evidence of insufficient design detailing. Each theme is further subcategorised with a view to identifying implications for future policy.

The findings suggest the 10 per cent Ofgem retrofit failure rates predictions are an underestimate and so there may be a need for additional investigations to understand the trend across the UK.

Recommendations to reduce the failure rates may include making changes to the current inspection regime, widening understanding among installers; providing standard repeatable designs for repeated features; and empowering occupants to trigger inspections.

The sample is representative of a substantial proportion of the homes in the UK suggesting that retrofit quality may in many instances be below the required standards.

Risks of moisture issues and underperformance in domestic retrofit are a concern for government industry and households. This research shows that many installation failures are the result of not implementing existing guidelines and a change to the enforcement of standards may be needed to enact a fundamental change in installer practice and process control.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate, the functioning of value creating configurations and stakeholder interactions in networks of organisations of the retrofit industry for commercial buildings.

A value approach was applied to develop a model of retrofit activities. A Europe wide stakeholder engagement, consisting of over 50 face-to-face interviews with key informants with energy efficiency retrofit (EER) knowledge and expertise, informed analyses on flows of both tangible and intangible value for commercial EER projects.

Given the need to expand the EER marketplace, the sustainability of EER processes is as important as the sustainability of EER project outcomes. Understanding value creation in retrofit processes is crucial to successfully harnessing the available energy savings potential from the built environment.

The increasing importance of externalities, such as carbon, means that previously unaccounted for costs are now being considered in business models. For EER projects, the challenge is to respond to this new business environment, while maintaining adequate value for stakeholders. For commercial property developers, this means a growing impetus to understand the value propositions of other EER stakeholders.

The evaluation of value creation across business relationships such as those of the construction industry has not been conducted in a systematic manner to date. This paper provides a novel application of value analysis. Interrogating materials and monetary flows, value interactions between stakeholders and stakeholder perception of value are vital in fostering the long-term capacity of the EER sector.

The built environment is well known for carbon emission and its impact especially as it pertains to existing buildings. This has culminated in an increasing need for a retrofit of such buildings. This study details the development of an artefact for improving the delivery of energy retrofit projects therein to curb these impacts.

The study utilized a mixed method research design for data collection. In achieving this, data was collected in three different phases; (1) a pilot study; (2) a juxtaposition of desktop case studies, live case studies, focus group discussion forum and an expert survey; and (3) a questionnaire survey for the validation of the emergent artefact. Accordingly, the quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics, whereas qualitative content analysis was deployed for qualitative data.

The findings enabled an identification of the elements of a building energy retrofit project (BERP) such as project initiation, building assessment, detailed energy survey, technical analysis and implementation plans of energy measures, monitoring and verification. Also, it provided the challenges and enablers associated with successful BERP. This information was subsequently utilized in the development and validation of an artefact for delivering successful BERP. Summarily, a set of guidelines comprising of seven stages for managing successful BERPs were elucidated.

The validated artefact provides an adaptive and innovative route for achieving sustainability in retrofit trade.

The study conceptualizes an artefact for improving the delivery of BERPs.

Despite the pressures around the world to retrofit existing buildings to have higher energy performance, still the level of adoption and implementation of Building Energy Efficiency Retrofits (BEER) appear comparatively low. The purpose of this paper is to explore the barriers that affect the successful implementation of BEER in actual project level executions and identify strategies to overcome such barriers.

In total, two case studies were conducted in selected hotel buildings to explore the barriers that hamper the adoption and implementation of BEER in the local context and in turn identify the strategies to overcome them. Altogether 11 semi-structured interviews were conducted with respondents involved in different phases of these BEER projects. The data were analysed using code-based content analysis.

Altogether 38 barriers were identified under the three main project phases. Furthermore, the study revealed 77 strategies to overcome the identified barriers, classified as individual, organisational and national level strategies.

This paper has made a unique contribution to the field by identifying the barriers in each phase of BEER projects and proposing strategies to be taken at different levels to overcome them. The findings of this study will provide a basis for setting up country-wide and organisation-wide strategies for successfully improving the energy efficiency of existing hotel buildings.

Existing buildings encompass the largest segment of the built environment and, hence, have become a key target for energy retrofits (ER) to substantially reduce global energy usage. The success of ER projects is closely linked to the effective involvement of various stakeholders within the decision-making process. This paper aims to investigate different stakeholders and their involvement throughout the decision-making process of ER projects.

Two successfully implemented ER projects in existing hotel buildings were selected as cases to gain novel insights into the key stakeholders to be involved along with their functions and roles in five different stages of the ER decision-making process. To collect required data, in total 11 semi-structured interviews were conducted with stakeholders involved in different stages of the decision-making process in the respective case studies. Data was analysed using code-based content analysis with the aid of NVivo computer software.

Altogether, 18 stakeholders and 7 roles reflective of the nature of their involvement in the respective stages were established. Findings disclosed that the nature of the project, level of knowledge, expertise and commitment of internal staff, type of ownership of the facility and mode of financing have significant influence on involvement of different stakeholders in ER projects.

The findings of this study are useful in enhancing the successful adoption and implementation of ER through timely and effective involvement and integration of stakeholders.