Building Rehabilitation: A Sustainable Strategy for the Preservation of the Built Environment

Abstract

Building rehabilitation and sustainability must go hand in hand to ensure the preservation of the built environment and environmentally conscious practices. Construction is one of the most polluting industries with a high impact on the carbon footprint. Thus, building rehabilitation appears as an effective strategy to reduce this impact, promoting the reuse of more efficient materials and technologies. This study focuses on the rehabilitation of existing buildings as a sustainable strategy and presents the quantitative profile of academic publications in the last 10 years, showing the main themes studied. The results of the sample surveyed on the Scopus platform show an increasing number of publications in the period surveyed (2012–2023), which shows a growing academic interest in the topic. It is possible to see that the publication trend line is ascending and that the largest number of articles investigates building rehabilitation, followed by the rehabilitation of school buildings, energy issues, rehabilitation methods, materials technology, water issues, and sustainability related to rehabilitation.