Sustainability assessment of buildings: state of the art and future developments

Fiera del Levante – Smart Building 12 May 2022 | Workshop

Within the international trade fair Smart Building, UNI with the support of iiSBE Italia have organized a workshop dedicated to the sustainability assessment of buildings, exploring the environmental, social and economic dimensions. The workshop has been a path from the state of the art to the future developments dedicated to all interested stakeholders of the sector.

On May 12th – 14th, in Bari (Italy) it was held Smart Building Levante an international biennial trade fair dedicated to technological innovation in the home, building and city of Southern Italy.

EUB SuperHub could not miss the opportunity to give its testimony!

UNI - the Italian standardization body, in collaboration with iiSBE Italia, organized a workshop entitled 'Sustainability assessment of buildings: state of the art and future developments'. The workshop was aimed at deepening the topic of sustainability assessment in the building sector, exploring its environmental, social and economic dimensions. 

About 30 people participated in presence to the event, while it was broadcast on Youtube channel. So far more than 50 people watched at the video.

The workshop analysed the current methods for assessing the energy performance of buildings, from which it is necessary to start in order to define a new holistic approach for a comprehensive sustainability assessment. The workshop was structured as a pathway starting from the state of the art related to the individual building, ending by considering the city as a whole, with a look at the new sustainability assessment tools.

UNI opened the workshop introducing the role of standards and presenting the current standardization and regulatory framework in the building sector (from the building design, to the architectural barriers). The workshop then focused on the Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) current standardization and regulatory framework, with an overview also on the possible impacts on the mortgage market due to the 2020/852 Regulation on sustainable investments. Related to this point, UNI continued the discussion, introducing EUB SuperHub project and presenting the results emerged from the analysis of the market trust towards the EPCs and their impact on the dwellings evaluation. The workshop opened to voluntary sustainability schemes, implemented at national, European and International level. This has introduced the holistic approach embedded in EUB SuperHub in the definition of the next generation of EPCs. iiSBE Italia has presented the project main goal of harmonizing EPCs at European level, while going beyond the energy assessment in the evaluation of the sustainability of buildings. Considering the relevance of the topic, the workshop touched upon also the LCA methodology and the problem of benchmarks. The last part was dedicated to the future developments not only of the individual buildings, but also of the cities, describing what’s behind the SRI (Smart Readiness Indicators). Last but not the least, iiSBE Italia has showcased the FeliCity platform, showing how innovative online tools can support at reaching the EU Green Deal goals for the building sector.