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There is no fixed method to analyse the global warming (carbon) impact of a building envelope over its life time, however guidance is given in BS EN 15978 [1]. The paper assesses the Life Cycle stages and components in 3 archetypal construction typologies for an apartment building assessed with the BRE Green Guide [2] as a comparator. There is a difference of a factor of 4 between construction types and the position of units within an apartment block. Replacement and recycling factors significantly affect the end results with steel being highly recyclable, concrete advantageous in longevity and timber sequestering carbon at early stages. Timber does have an increased number of replacements during the life span and significant impacts at end of life stages. The BRE quantification does not take into account foundations leading to a climate change impact 3 times lower than a bottom up analysis for a steel building.

As a consequence of global climate change, a vicious circle of raising outdoor temperatures and consequently increasing CO 2 emissions associated with raising energy demands for cooling during hot summers is anticipated for office buildings in general. This paper investigates possible mitigation and adaptation strategies by applying regionally downscaled weather data from future climate scenarios in dynamic thermal simulation of four sample office buildings in Vienna, Austria. The effects of the appliance of external insulation and reduced levels of internal heat loads upon overall net energy demand and final energy demand under future climatic conditions are shown: By trend, external thermal insulation slows down nocturnal cooling processes in summer. It is this fact which frequently arises the question whether thermal insulation might prove counterproductive under climate change premises. However, it is shown here that winter savings due to external insulation will continue to outweigh summer constraints even in the future. Different levels of energy efficiency in IT equipment and artificial lighting influence net cooling demand in the sample buildings to a more significant extent than does the influence of a changing climate. Still, it has to be kept in mind that the reduction of internal loads in turn increases heating demand during cold periods as they compensate for heat losses then. Thus, reasonable combinations of improvements in internal heat loads and external insulation of the building envelope have to be developed.. The novelty of the approach presented here lies in that it simultaneously takes effects of external insulation and reduction of internal heat loads as well as their respective counter effects into account.

The climate evolution towards a progressive increase of Earth's temperature is leading to many worrying consequences, involving different aspects of World life. Among them, a specific focus should be given to the resilience of building energy design to global warming, since the efficiency and effectiveness of energy conservation measures over time can be highly affected by climate change. In this vein, the paper applies a multi-stage, multi-objective approach to find robust cost-optimal energy retrofit solutions and to assess their resilience to global warming. The approach combines the software EnergyPlus and MATLAB® to implement an optimization genetic algorithm and a smart research strategy. This framework allows to explore a huge solution domain by investigating sundry performance indicators, such as energy needs, polluting emissions and global costs, thereby ensuring a robust assessment of cost-optimality. Different cost-optimal retrofit solutions are found for different global warming and economic scenarios. Finally, a careful decision-making is performed to identify a recommended solution that provides the highest resilience to the cited scenarios, yielding the best trade-off among energy, environmental and economic performances. The approach is applied to a typical Mediterranean building, located in South Italy. The recommended solution includes the energy retrofit of the whole building envelope and the replacement of energy systems. It requires an investment around 100 €/m2 and, in most scenarios, produces high potential benefits in terms of primary energy savings (42 ÷ 44 kWh/m2a), polluting emission reductions (11.5 ÷ 12.0 kgCO2-eq/m2a) and global cost savings (5 ÷ 78 €/m2).

Global climate change is serving as warning signs it gradually begins to capture the attention of people at large. Many actions have been and continue to be taken by governments and organizations to preserve the planet, which is impactful and needed. But conservation efforts are not exclusive to governments and large institutions- individuals can contribute in multiple ways that will have ripple effects, one being the choice to build sustainable, net-zero energy homes. Building a house that is a net-zero energy requires many strategies.One of the most compelling factors in reducing the home energy consumption, to then achieve a net-zero energy home especially in hot-dry regions, is the optimization of the building envelope performance. This paper discussed several building envelope design strategies that are suitable for homes in hot-dry regions and tested them.The Methods including analyzing case study from Qater by using computer and were analyzed using Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools for energy simulation programs. All those strategies were applied to a design proposal for a house in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which is a hot-dry region. Further, the same simulation analyses were projected onto an identical house to the design proposal, but with a traditional, low-efficient building envelope.The results showed that the house with the high-efficient building envelope had 48% less energy consumption than the one that has the low-efficiency envelope.This research demonstrated the efficacy of the building envelope to reduce the energy consumption of single-family homes in hot-dry regions. The study outlines vital strategies for a high-efficient building envelope design in hot-dry areas that reaching net-zero energy homes and thus help to offset the negative impact of climate changes in arid areas.