It’s Greener to Retrofit than Build New, Report Finds via NREIonline.com

Brand new green buildings are always white hot.

But experts have long been touting the environmental benefit of green buildings’ slightly less sexy cousin: Retrofitting existing buildings with green upgrades.

Now there is proof.

A groundbreaking report released earlier this year found that it is unequivocally greener to retrofit an old building than construct a new green building, no matter how many high-tech bells and whistles are in the new construction. “The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse,” was commissioned by Preservation Green Lab, a project of the National Trust for Historic Preservation with support from The Summit Foundation and in partnership with four companies, including Skanska Group.

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