Industrial buildings play vital roles in a society, from shaping the economic, technological, cultural, and social fabric of society, to contributing to its growth, development, and resilience. Hence often at the end of their lifespans, they are “preserved” for their historical value through renovation. In consideration for renovation, often included are their historical significance, structural integrity, adaptive reuse, social sustainability, financial viability and environmental impacts. Among them, the carbon emissions associated with a project are becoming increasingly a factor when a historical building is to be sensitively renovated so that it can continue to contribute to local sustainability. However, embodied carbon is often shadowed by operational carbon and overlooked in the development of renovation options. This paper aims to argue for the need to include embodied carbon in the consideration and for guidelines for doing so in a renovation process. The argument is through a systematic review of current practices in the renovations of industrial heritage buildings between selected presentative countries, the developing ones and developed ones, on the belief that the former could learn valuable lessons from the latter who has gone through the process already. The argument also shows the difference in policy between different countries and articulates how the inclusion of this might support environmental targets in developing countries. Based on quantitative comparison, the review explains why embodied carbon (EC) is missing in developing countries. The study estimates the proportion and value of EC with the total life cycle in renovations of industrial buildings to support the argument. Above all, a calculation using a standard LCA tool (ISO14040 & 14044) applied to four successful examples and quantitative comparison highlights the benefits of including embodied carbon in renovations of industrial buildings and the carbon savings in developing countries and further supports the argument.