Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
5.1
The ''Building Regulation'' as Implementation Tool
for Sustainable Restoration of Existing Buildings
Based on current political guidelines of the European Community that push
strongly towards the achievement of objectives aimed at the energy sustainability
of cities, of buildings and of facilities, the building code seems to be the best
operative instrument to ensure a sustainable regulation of the municipal territory,
taking into account the local context to which it refers.
In Italy it is well-established the interest in this instrument, and at the level of
municipal planning, it is the document more suitable to introduce new energy and
environmental criteria and objectives, which are improvements if compared to
existing legislation that regulates the field of energy efficiency and use of plants
producing energy from renewable sources in the building sector.
It is interesting to note in Italy the growth, year after year, not only of the
number of municipalities involved with a revision of its building code in a sus-
tainable way, +42.3 % compared to 2013 to 2010 and even +80 % compared to the
2009 (Cresme Ricerche s.p.a and Legambiente
2013
) but also the features
accounted for in it (the use of renewable energy production plants; the water
saving; the use of trees to improve external microclimatic conditions; such as also
features referred to the coating and the conditioning systems). By now the expe-
riences relate to all regions of Italy, with at least one sustainable building code in
each Italian region.
This interest is due to the fact that municipal building code is a focal point of
the building process, where political, technical and procedural aspects collide. It
must account for political and technical stakeholders' needs.
Besides, cross competencies in the fields of urban administration, planning,
construction and energy management are needed for its definition. This document
indeed is an operational tool strongly connected to the territory and defined
through a 'bottom-up' approach, accounting for critical issues at local level. On
the other hand, it must be flexible enough to adapt to the race towards 'urban
sustainability' that the European Union is running.
The achievement of targets for reducing climate-altering emissions by 2020 and
beyond, and the definition of appropriate means to that end, are elements that
characterize the energy policy of the Member States who have a natural imple-
mentation of regulatory measures at national, regional and also municipal level
with appropriate insights to the various spatial scales to which they refer.
Since 2002, with the first Directive on energy efficiency in buildings, the
European Union, in fact, decided to initiate a process more and more complex and
an in-depth change that today has been updated with the latest Directive
2012
/27/
UE on efficiency energy.
In this context, for the achievement of national and regional goals of polluting
emissions reduction, it is more and more important the role of local authorities.
