| Summary/Abstract |
This article discusses how the existing regulatory, informative, and financial instruments for the renovation of existing building stock in Spain could be combined to produce a national ‘Building Renovation Passport’, that is expected to be introduced by the European Commission in 2023. This work also argues in favour of integrating the existing tools for the conservation of heritage buildings in the Passport, and surveys current mechanisms used as ‘interfaces’ between heritage conservation and broader, building stock conservation-related instruments that are already in use and could be helpful in the aforementioned integration. The latter would allow all stakeholders to identify those improvement opportunities that are compatible with heritage protection and plan for the staged conservation, restoration, and adaptation of any heritage building, reducing transaction costs and enhancing conservation by reducing the use of existing exemption clauses from compliance with technical regulations. The division of competences between government levels, a risk of excessive technical complexity, and the need to take the urban scale into consideration will emerge as the main challenges for an initiative that could be adapted to the legal framework of other Member States.
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