Motivation for Doing a Sustainable Building Refurbishment from a Norwegian Building Owner's Perspective

Norway aims to be a part of the European Green Deal where refurbishing and renovating buildings is an important action towards sustainable development to reach national and global SDG. This paper aims to shed light on what motivates the building owner to do sustainable building refurbishment (SBR) and discuss strategies that promote further SBR. This is examined through a scoping literature review and in-depth interviews of public and private property owners in the southeast of Norway. This study confirms that the first and foremost motivations of doing a SBR are cost-driven, technically, and regulatory-driven. Secondly, environmental aspects have the potential to be a motivator due to future changes in terms of demands of doing climate gas calculations and the implementation of the EU's taxonomy. Social aspects such as user demands and user involvement are discussed but not found as a motivation in itself. However, for historical buildings, the willingness to invest and find sustainable solutions is more likely to be true, as historic buildings are important for the identity and attractiveness in their neighborhood. The findings suggested that stricter regulations and higher demolition fees, climate gas calculations and life cycle cost demands, and EU's taxonomy are likely to further promote SBR.