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Green Building Council (GBC) Italia, always engaged in actions to promote the consensus on green building issues, attended the workshop held in Brussels on January 9th, 2012 in the framework of the implementation activities of the European Directive on Energy Performance of Buildings (Directive 2010/31/EU, EPBD recast). The purpose of the workshop was the presentation by DG Energy to the business stakeholders of the progress in the definition of a “voluntary common EU certification scheme for energy performance of non-residential buildings”. Mauro Roglieri, member of the GBC Italia board, represented the interests and the contribution of the association.

The first short version (“for evaluation purposes”) of the new GBC Italy Home protocol, which contains the guidelines for “design, build and restore residential buildings”, is now available for download on GBC Italia web site.

In Italy, where it represents a primary asset for the population, as well as a real and symbolic value, a house can be considered a preferential place and tool to spread the culture of sustainability, with the direct application of concepts such as energy conservation, water management, quality of the indoor environment, healthiness, sustainable materials, comfort  and connection with the territory.

After making a version of the 2009 New Construction and Renovations LEED Protocol for the national market, the undertaking of GBC Italia has been to produce a new tool addressed to the residential market.

On the basis of the American LEED ® for Homes Protocol, the document has been redrafted taking into consideration the Italian building peculiarities and construction models.

Info: www.gbcitalia.org

Copyright: GBC Italia

Bruxelles: “The EU Climate Policy Tracker (EU CPT – www.climatepolicytracker.eu) 2011, a newly updated and revised version of the 2010 study, reveals that despite improvements by nine Member States over the past year, some have achieved a worse score than last year.” “The average scoring remains low, warning that EU climate and energy policy is failing to put the EU on a course to 2050 decarbonisation.”

Published in September 2011, the Guidelines on Carbon Management for Italian Universities are one of the main results of a project funded by the Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea, as part of the Carbon Management Policy for the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

The project idea is that higher education institutions can take a leader position in turning sustainability into action by stimulating sustainable processes, practices and behaviors to be applied both in their field and to the whole community.

An effective policy on carbon management within a college allows to reduce the emissions of a large real estate assets, to contract the energy consumption and costs, and thus to improve the economic balance of the universities, with the opportunity to invest differently any saving.
It also has a significant educational relapse on students, who can endorse the concepts related to energy and environmental sustainability at first by experiencing them directly during their university years, and then offering them in the professional roles they will play in companies or public bodies.

Through its previous experience in Thetis SpA, Mauro Roglieri, among the main authors of the paper, has contributed to the project ideation working in team with engineers of the Ministry for the Environment and Project Managers of the Ca’ Foscari University.