Vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) are a high-performance thermal insulation solution, which offer a much higher heat resistance than traditional insulation materials. Thus, is enabling a reduction in thickness of the building envelope, thereby solving one of the major challenges in today's requirements of energy-efficient buildings. Hence, the area efficiency in buildings will increase, and the slimmer walls may lead to increased daylight admission through the window partitions. Furthermore, it gives the possibility of retrofitting existing buildings towards today's standards within acceptable economical and practical measures.  Reduction of thermal heat resistance is one of the major challenges when using VIP, thus the degradation of these properties is studied in this article. An experimental study of ageing effects for VIPs encapsulated in PUR and in EPS has been performed, using methods for accelerated ageing. The time frame of 90 days for the experiments is shown to be too short in order to give a distinctive result on the increase of thermal. Experimental and theoretical results agree within these uncertainties. There has not been shown an advantage of encapsulating VIPs in plastic materials related to the increasing of the thermal conductivity for the panels over time. Further, concepts for retrofitting buildings using EPS elements with encapsulated VIPs are studied. Economic and environmental issues are addressed related to energy prices, CO2 ?emissions and investments costs. SIMIEN and THERM has been used for the analysis, covering both the effects on the building as a whole and details as thermal bridges. The high production costs for the VIPs make this solution not favorable in economic terms. Change in production costs or electricity prices could make this more profitable. Other advantages must be taken in to account in order to justify the investment costs within today's situation. Simpler installation compared with alternative solutions and indoor climatic comfort are properties that could affect the foundation.