REbuild 2023: Accelerating building renovation together

We are excited to have taken part in REbuild 2023 with H2020 INFINITE’s mid-term conference and an interactive workshop on business models. REbuild is the first Italian event dedicated to sustainable innovation of the built environment, tackling the challenges and the future of construction industry through talks with international speakers.

With over 100 participants, the conference provided inspiring ideas for the future of deep renovation. Starting off with Sebastien Delpont, head of innovation of Energisprong, who recounted how efficient offsite retrofit is in some European countries and envisioned the same process happening worldwide with great improvements in cost-effectiveness and sustainability.

Thomas Miorin, CEO of EDERA, project partner of INFINITE, followed with the Italian Energiesprong state-of-art, from the first pilot project to all other ongoing activities aimed at engaging front-edge players in the building industry.

Stefano Avesani, senior researcher from Eurac Research and INFINITE project coordinator, presented the kits developed by INFINITE, project funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 958397, as solutions for scalable deep renovations, solutions that can prove fundamental to tackle the challenge of the European building stock requalification.

The workshop was centered on reducing the gap between demand and supply in industrialized building renovation. Participants were divided into two tables to address the economic feasibility needed to support deeper and better-quality retrofitting. Debates were encouraged by Thomas Miorin of EDERA, Stefano Avesani of Eurac Research, Sebastien Delpont of Energiesprong, Federica Saccani of JLL, and Noemi Gallo of Sinloc – Sistema Iniziative Locali SpA.

Bridging the Gap: can demand meet supply for offsite retrofit?

The demand table tackled the challenges of offsite retrofit, including high costs, difficulty in life cycle assessment, the need for a lasting warranty, and the quantification of non-energy benefits (multi-benefits).

Benefit valorization was the focus of the discussion: participants highlighted the benefits of shorter implementation time, lower financial burdens, improved tenants’ comfort and better quality of the project and interventions. Revenue generation was explored with examples brough on by Sebastien Delpont of Energiesprong, such as carbon credits as possible future revenue streams, the possibility to increase rent and property value, beside the sale of renewable energy.

The supply table focused on how to reduce the cost of deep redevelopment and/or create more value at the same price. Key aspects of cost-reduction have been identified as:

• – the optimization of logistics
• – standardization of design solutions
• – waste management
• – reduction of onsite and provisional works

Participants see that cost compression is hardly a real possibility in the short-term horizon, even if process optimization is possible. However, participants agreed that the conditions for cost compression are a presence of guaranteed and aggregable demand volumes, a greater availability of information on the building, and the aggregation of interventions to optimize logistics, transport and material delivery. The potential replicability in different areas is key for the optimization of the process.

Overall, the workshop provided some matching points between demand and supply, which will be the starting point for deeper considerations within INFINITE project. There was a significant interest in replicating and scaling business models: indeed, the discussion among participants exceeded the scheduled time for the workshop and interesting food for thought kept coming till the end.

It comes as no surprise: REbuild is a meeting of peers, an occasion to dialogue and to exchange experience, to build connections that will move the construction industry forward.

Download the presentations

Industrialised Retrofit: Research Experiences, Stefano Avesani, Eurac Research

Scaling up a Net Zero retrofit market in EU, Sébastien Delpont, EnergieSprong France

Il retrofit off-site per una transizione energetica inclusiva, Thomas Miorin, EDERA

Workshop: Nuovi modelli di business per una riqualificazione profonda e scalabile

Photos: Jacopo Salvi, ReBuild / Ludovica Galeazzi, Eurac Research