Background

RENOWAVE is a Flagship project funded by the Swiss innovation agency Innosuisse. Its objective is to reduce the CO₂ emissions in the Swiss built environment by addressing building retrofit and switching from fossil fuels to renewable energies. Buildings are a major source of Switzerland’s CO₂ emissions, and the existing stock will represent the overwhelming part of the sectorial energy demand for the several upcoming decades. The challenges (technical, financial and organizational) related to large-scale and efficient retrofits are numerous, interrelated and transdisciplinary. RENOWAVE addresses building retrofit in a process of co-construction between researchers from various fields and implementation partners representing the various stakeholders involved in the complex process chain of renovation. Therefore 46 implementation partners and 16 research groups from industry, research and public authorities collaborate on 16 topics related to the retrofit of the building stock. The project started in February 2022 and will end in February 2026. 

Topics
The 16 topics treated in the project are interrelated and regrouped into four main pillars:

• information, cooperation and support
• Technology and architecture
• Finance, regulation and law
• business strategies and renovation clusters

Description
The ZHAW Institute of Facility Management (IFM) is part of the School of Life Sciences and Facility Management and has two locations in Wädenswil and in Zurich. The IFM is the Swiss competency centre for bachelor’s and master’s courses, continuing education, research and development, and services in real estate and facility management. IFM constitutes a team of 50 dedicated experts committed to advancing science and practice in the management of real estate, workplaces and facility services throughout the entire life cycle of a property. 

Contribution in RENOWAVE
ZHAW-IFM contributes in Subproject 1.4 «Life Cycle Sustainability & resilience assessment of solutions». ZHAW-IFM will develop a GIS map for Subproject 2.4 “Decision support instruments combining geo and building data” with the help of experts from the research group of geo- informatics. ZHAW-IFM will also coordinate and manage the different tasks of Subproject 4.2 “Renovation clusters based on “one-stop-shop”. In addition, ZHAW-IFM is the project co-lead of Subproject 4.3 “Potential for new business strategies” as it has a long record of working with RE industry on tools for decarbonization of buildings, portfolios and districts. At last, IFM will also coordinate and manage the different tasks of Subproject 4.4 “Holistic renovation concepts”.