Sustainability in built heritage: A state of the art in the regulation and tools

The construction sector significantly affects the environment in terms of emissions and wasting raw materials. Indeed, construction and structural assessment processes are responsible for emissions due to a variety of factors. Furthermore, the definition of sustainability indicators plays a key role in minimizing the environmental impact associated with the Life Cycle Assessment of construction. However, the construction field is still constituted by a fragmented layout and lack of guidelines in terms of sustainability: state-of-the-art is the first step to define a low-emission framework. From this perspective, this research aims to review scientific literature about environmental impact assessments, sustainability indicators, protocols, guidelines, and tools related to sustainable construction practices through Life Cycle. Nevertheless, Rating Systems set holistic framework conditions for assessing the sustainability of buildings based on environmental impacts. Also, an evaluation of the pros and cons of tools released for providing comprehensive LCA functionality is presented. Hence, this study aims to review the sustainability layout in the built heritage Life Cycle, providing a comprehensive framework to guide engineers and architects with low-impact solutions.