Economic evaluation of retrofitting existing buildings from a sustainability perspective: global trends and bibliometric analysis

The global emphasis on sustainable development and urban renewal has caused economic evaluation issues in the process of building retrofitting to become a focal point of international attention. A bibliometric study analyzing 246 publications using CiteSpace explored key aspects of this field. The findings reveal the following: (1) Global attention has been given to the sustainable development goals, and building retrofitting has positively impacted related research, suggesting promising future prospects. (2) Interdisciplinary convergence, including construction building technology, civil engineering, and green sustainable science, is a prominent trend, with social sciences and economic evaluation methods contributing to relevant advancements. (3) Collaborative network relationships among research institutions and international collaboration are vital for interdisciplinary development in the field. (4) This study clarified the core keywords (e.g., circular economy, energy efficiency, energy consumption, and climate change), emerging keywords (e.g., systemic, circular design, and sustainability), and hot keywords (e.g., barriers, Life Cycle Assessment, urban mining, demolition, and circular economy) in the field. Three research directions were also identified based on clustering algorithms: economic analysis, management evaluation, and climate impact assessment, as well as retrofit technologies and option optimization. Future research trends and prospects in this field have been proposed, which will be beneficial for the development of this research domain and for global sustainability.