Climate Change Resilience of Existing Buildings: Scientometric Analysis of Global Research

Existing buildings constitute the majority of the built environment and consume over two-thirds of the world’s energy, producing over 70% of the CO₂ emissions. Buildings and infrastructure must have the capacity to adapt to and lessen the effects of climate-related disasters, such as excessive temperature or flooding, in order for the built environment to be resilient to climate change. Hence, any attempt to upgrade or retrofit existing buildings resilient to climate change will ensure timely reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption. However, limited studies have made attempt to review the resilience of existing buildings to the global climate change crisis with some gaps left unattended to. Through the lens of scientometric analysis, this study presents a comprehensive review of the climate change resilience of existing buildings. A total of 2787 related papers were retrieved from the Web of Science and scientometrically analysed, providing penetrating insights into current research progress, trending topics, and future directions. Multi-objective optimization, energy efficiency, green retrofitting, sustainability, and building performance were the hottest topics in the reporting period from 1990 to 2023. A holistic framework was proposed to include human- and technology-centred approaches to ensure existing buildings resilience to climate change crisis. Future research opportunities lie in the application of machine learning, life cycle assessment in addressing the climate crisis and a call for stronger collaborative links between countries and institutions. The study’s findings add to the body of knowledge in this domain through an up-to-date literature on climate resilience of existing buildings, and reveal the research needs for practitioners to advance retrofitting techniques in a sustainable built environment.