ABSTRACT
Within the planning and design community, the field of historic preservation offers particular insight into the practice of resource conservation in the built environment. Historic preservation is primarily concerned with the protection of irreplaceable cultural resources, including buildings, monuments, and landscapes. While building reuse represents an important means of reducing carbon emissions and the use of natural resources, reinvestment in older neighborhoods offers a means to capitalize not only on the embodied energy and carbon in existing buildings but also on the infrastructure that serves buildings. Many assume that the energy and carbon expended in manufacturing building materials and constructing a new green building is offset by its efficient operation. A spirit of innovation and enthusiasm is evident among green building professionals, which is both exciting and encouraging. Retrofits of historic buildings can and should be undertaken to extend building life and better capture the energy savings available through newer technologies.
