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In Spain, most businesses are medium to small size enterprises, representing 90% of the total, but there is a lack of studies of the types of building this sector uses. The main objective of this paper is to present a method for the evaluation of small industrial construction projects to facilitate the introduction of eco-efficient solutions. For this, it is necessary to identify the most representative buildings and the aspects of these which have the most environmental impact. A methodology in place for the evaluation of dwelling construction is adapted, for the first time, to evaluate industrial buildings. The construction solutions characterized are those traditionally used in the sector, as identified through 87 surveys. A standardized classification of work units is proposed to enable the use of environmental product information, such as eco-labels and/or EPD, and LCA databases. The carbon footprint (CF) and water footprint (WF) are the indicators selected because of their straightforward message. Finally, a comparative analysis is performed showing the high recycling potential of concrete and cement which, along with metals and aggregates, control the impact in terms of CF. With respect to the WF indicator, plastic substitute aggregates are among the materials with the greatest impact. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

The term energy poverty (EP), mostly used to capture problems related to an inadequate access to energy suppliers in developing countries, and that of fuel poverty (FP), commonly employed when households suffer from insufficient monetary resources to pay for their basic energy needs, are used interchangeably by many researchers. Energy poverty and/or fuel poverty are considered to be an indication of domestic energy deprivation or energy vulnerability and remain a global problem that has been accentuated in Europe due to the economic crisis. This work has made a comprehensive review of the current concepts and indicators of FP, and of current initiatives to tackle this issue, across Europe, thereby raising the discussion of how energy vulnerability factors fit FP situations: available infrastructure, energy efficiency, social and economic poverty, and wellbeing and health. In this context, the first weak spot of the FP indicators and initiatives analyzed is that most factors that influence the everyday activities of a household are not considered (comfort, health, and wellbeing), resulting in an incomplete analysis if these are used in an isolated way. This paper provides a multiple-indicator approach to understand an FP situation beyond its traditional definition, thereby establishing a starting point for the reflection of vulnerability in policy decisions and methodological implications.

Urbanization projects, understood as those supplying basic services for cities, such as drinking water, sewers, communication services, power, and lighting, are normally short-term extremely scattered actions, and it can be difficult to track their environmental impact. The present article's main contribution is to employ the project budgets of public urbanization work to provide an instrument for environmental improvement, thereby helping public procurement, including sustainability criteria. Two urban projects in Seville, Spain are studied: the first substitutes existing services, and the second also includes gardens and playgrounds in the street margins. The methodology finds the construction elements that must be controlled in each project from the perspective of three indicators: carbon, water footprints, and embodied energy. The main impacts found are due to only four construction units: concrete, aggregates, asphalt, and ceramic pipes for the sewer system, that represent 70% or more of the total impact in all indicators studied. The public developer can focus procurement on those few elements in order to exert a lower impact and to significantly reduce the environmental burden of urbanization projects. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

CO2 emissions due to the construction sector represent 40% of the total, either directly by the use of the building or indirectly by the emissions incorporated in construction materials and products. It is important to achieve a change in this sector to introduce these concepts in a simple way. There are various tools for evaluating emissions in construction projects. In the present work, the OERCO2 tool is used. This work studies housing projects in two European countries belonging to significantly different regions, Spain (Andalusia) and Romania (Bucharest and Transylvania). Although concrete or masonry structures are mainly used in Romania, due to an increased demand for residential buildings in recent years, a new niche has appeared in the construction sector: metallic and mixed (metal&ndash, concrete) structures for multi-storied buildings. For these reasons, a comparison between concrete and metallic buildings can be made in order to highlight their environmental impact. Twenty-four projects are selected from Romanian projects with metallic structures, and Spanish projects with concrete structures. They are also differentiated according to the type of foundation used. As expected, buildings with a metallic structure have more economic and environmental impact than reinforced concrete. The materials with greater impact are metal, concrete, cement, and ceramic products. The potential of the tool for the evaluation of various construction solutions, materials, and project phases is demonstrated.

Identificar aquellos hogares en una situación de vulnerabilidad a la pobreza energética es el primer paso para abordar una problemática social a nivel mundial asociada a la falta de servicios energéticos mínimos, conocido por los términos anglosajones–Fuel Poverty y Energy Poverty, FP y EP, respectivamente. El concepto FP, definido en el Reino Unido como “la incapacidad para obtener un adecuado confort térmico debido a la ineficiencia de la vivienda”, mientras que el concepto EP refleja la imposibilidad de tener acceso a un servicio energético mínimo en países en desarrollo. La falta de un consenso a la hora de definir una ruta clara ha originado que algunos países no la reconozcan como un problema social. La investigación se basa en la revisión de ambos conceptos, a través del análisis conceptual de los términos FP y EP, revisión de indicadores utilizados, estudio de la capacidad de los indicadores para identificar y proponer soluciones a la problemática. Todo ello en relación a los objetivos incluidos: infraestructuras disponibles, eficiencia energética, pobreza social y económica, bienestar y salud social. El resultado es la revisión desde una perspectiva técnica en el sector residencial que ayude a desarrollar soluciones que cubran las carencias encontrada. Identifying those households in an energy poverty vulnerability situation is the first step towards addressing a global social problem associated with the lack of minimum energy services, known as Fuel Poverty and Energy Poverty, FP and EP, respectively. The FP concept is defined in the United Kingdom as “the inability to obtain adequate thermal comfort due to the inefficiency of the house”, while the EP concept reflects the impossibility in developing countries of having access to a minimal energy service. The lack of consensus when defining a clear path has meant that some countries have not recognized it as a social problem. The research is based on the review of both concepts, through the conceptual analysis of the terms, FP and EP, a review of indicators used, and the study of the capacity of the indicators to identify and propose solutions to the problem. All this regarding the objectives included: available infrastructures, energy efficiency, social and economic poverty, well-being and social health. The result is a review from a technical perspective in the residential sector, that helps develop solutions that cover the deficiencies found.

The construction sector is one of the most polluting industries, generating between 30% and 40% of the worldwide environmental burden in terms of raw materials, direct and indirect energy consumption, waste, and CO2 emissions. Recent advances in computer science and data management have facilitated the evaluation of present and future impacts, thus improving the sustainability of architectural designs. Powerful software tools, such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), allow environmental indicators to be incorporated into the construction elements that make up the project to evaluate it during the design stage. In this work, the state of the art of ecological indicator application through BIM platforms is studied. Barriers and uncertainties are also identified. Subsequently, a model is proposed to evaluate the environmental impact of an urbanization process or a project through several ecological indicators (carbon footprint, water footprint, and embodied energy). To perform this analysis, the most important aspect is to determine the quantities of each construction element and their clear decomposition into subelements, since both aspects add certainty to the analysis. For this purpose, construction cost databases are a good instrument for introducing environmental awareness. The reliability of LCA data, which can be obtained from generic databases or ecolabels such as environmental product declarations, becomes crucial. © 2020 by the authors.

According to numerous studies, approximately 90% of energy consumption in the life cycle of buildings occurs during the use and maintenance phase. The main aim of this study is to propose a method for the detailed calculation of costs and environmental impact corresponding to this phase, thus providing useful data for Facility Managers. The organization of the consumption of resources into three fundamental elements (manpower, materials, and machinery) enables the cost to be broken down and the Ecological Footprint [1] indicator (EF) to be applied. In previous advances of this research, the development of the model was focused on the utility consumption and cleaning tasks. On this occasion, the model is completed with the handling of maintenance tasks and a detailed assessment of the results, in which the factors that mark the cost and environmental impact are identified, as well as the specific moments of this phase in which peaks occur. In order to compare the costs and impacts produced each year, economic and environmental discount rates are used with respect to a baseline year. The methodology is applied to the case of a college hall of residence that houses up to 139 guests. The results show that cleaning tasks represent 6% of the annual EF and 63% of the annual cost, and maintenance 14% and 17%, respectively, thereby justifying the need for quantification. Finally, seven tasks are identified that together generate half of the EF and cost of cleaning, and nine other actions that incur more than a third of the annual cost and EF of maintenance.

Predicting the environmental impact of buildings from early stages of design becomes essential for improving their sustainability during the entire life cycle. Carbon footprint allows to determine the emissions of greenhouse gases derived from the building process from cradle to grave. In this chapter, the experience of the authors in carbon footprint calculation methodologies is presented through an open-source software tool for estimating the environmental impact of architectural projects from the design phase, as a product from the OERCO2 Erasmus + project. With a newly renovated interface, the internal functioning of this tool is comprehensively explained, presenting and analyzing the results obtained for representative building typologies. This tool aims to allow users to detect opportunities of improvement, environmental and economic, of their projects through modifications such as the selection of different materials or constructive solutions. Subsequently, the authors carry out an analysis of its flaws and forthcoming necessary upgrades to make this software tool more accessible to non-specialized users, thus easing the spread of knowledge on carbon footprint and the environmental impact of buildings. © 2020, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

The energy performance of a building is affected by the periodic thermal properties of the walls, and reliable methods of characterising these are therefore required. However, the methods that are currently available involve theoretical calculations that make it difficult to assess the condition of existing walls. In this study, the characterisation of the periodic thermal variables of walls using experimental measurements and methods as described in ISO 13786 was assessed. Two regression algorithms (multilayer perceptron [MLP] and random forest [RF]) and input variables obtained using two experimental methods (the heat flow meter and the thermometric method) were used. The methods gave accurate estimates, and better statistical parameter values were given by the RF models than the multilayer perceptron models. For all the periodic thermal variables, the percentage differences between the actual values and the estimated values given by the RF algorithm were low. The heat flow meter and the thermometric methods can both be used to characterise accurately the periodic thermal properties of walls using the RF algorithm. The variables specific to each method, including the wall thickness and the date of construction, affected the accuracies of the models most strongly. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Energy poverty is a multidimensional issue, and this means that it is difficult to understand the different levels of vulnerability to this phenomenon and its relationship with households' quality of life. This paper presents the validation of an innovative index for the analysis of vulnerability to energy poverty according to monetary, energy, and thermal comfort factors: The Index of Vulnerable Homes (IVH). The IVH goes beyond the use of single self-reported indicators of thermal comfort, and instead uses the adaptive thermal-comfort model defined in the normative UNE EN 15251:2007 to assess thermal comfort in relation to energy poverty. Furthermore, it has the potential to evaluate the societal impacts of current energy poverty policies by providing the economic analysis of different situations of vulnerability. The IVH is validated by comparing its results to those obtained from a survey conducted in a small-scale study undertaken in Salford, UK. To this end, evidence from households living in terraced houses built before 1980 is used to analyze health status in terms of vulnerability to energy poverty vulnerability according to their monetary situation and the characteristics of the dwelling. In the end, the results show good agreement between both the IVH's assessment and households' evidence, leading to consider the IVH as a suitable approach to understanding different levels of vulnerability to energy poverty.

In southern European countries, despite having mild winters, many people live in cold and energy-inefficient properties and struggle to meet their energy needs for comfort and warmth, and therefore they run the risk of developing cold-related illnesses. Although the relationship between health, energy poverty, and cold/warm homes has been analysed by numerous studies, the identification of the direct impact of this relationship on society remains elusive in these countries. This paper shows a case study in a working-class district of Seville, Spain. Six multi-family residential buildings (providing social housing for a total of seventy-one households), built prior to energy-efficiency regulations being in place, are retrofitted by Seville City Council. The Index of Vulnerable Homes, defined by the authors, assesses the vulnerability to energy poverty (pre- and post-intervention) of those households. Furthermore, the costs to the National Health Service (NHS) are also estimated. The results show that savings for the NHS could be used in order to define the payback period of those retrofitting funds. In conclusion, this paper presents how the Index of Vulnerable Homes would be able to help in the development of a comprehensive and coordinated strategy in social housing to address energy poverty, and in the monitoring of the effectiveness of ongoing projects in the city of Seville.

Due to poor design of buildings in terms of maintenance, there are a number of buildings today that remain extremely expensive to maintain, both economically and environmentally. In order to mitigate these overheads, the development of a cost database is needed with which the resources required to clean and maintain buildings can be estimated. This paper presents a methodology to estimate these costs and the environmental impact, in terms of Ecological Footprint (EF), associated to the utility consumption and to the cleaning tasks necessary during the service life of buildings. Given the numerous peculiarities identified for this type of activity compared to the construction of buildings, it is necessary to define a new methodology of calculation, with its own assumptions and formulae. This methodology is then applied to the case of a college hall of residence that houses up to 139 residents. The results show that the annual EF of cleaning tasks accounts for 11.42% of the EF of utility consumption. Together they total 67.334 global hectares per year (gha/yr), 88% of which corresponds to the carbon footprint. Within the EF of cleaning, about 71% is due to food consumed by labor, while 26% is due to the manufacture of cleaning products and tools, which are equally divided among the six categories of productive land. The development of this methodology is essential for the detailed quantification of the environmental impact of utility consumption and cleaning tasks that occur during the service life of buildings. The use of discount rates on results is included in terms of the EF of a baseline year, as an equivalent to the discount rate in economic terms.

Dwelling renovation has gained major importance in the European Union due to the current need for the urban regeneration of many cities, most of whose existing buildings (approximately 60%) were built in the 1960s to 1980s. These renovations require improvements in aspects such as structural integrity, accessibility, and the updating of deteriorated or obsolescent installations. This reveals that building renovations constitute a key factor in the future of the European building sector and must be included in strategies both for the reduction of this sector&rsquo, s environmental impact and for climate change mitigation. In order to determine the effectiveness of renovations and their impact, the HEREVEA (Huella Ecol&oacute, gica de la Rehabilitacion de Viviendas en Andalucia or Ecological Footprint of the Renovation of Dwellings in Andalusia) model is proposed on data obtained from the project&acute, s bill of quantities, its ecological footprint is assessed, and the economic-environmental feasibility of different proposals are evaluated simultaneously. The resulting model is integrated into a geographic information system, which allows georeferenced results. The tool can be used for sustainable and resilient planning policy-making at all government levels, and for the decision-making processes. In this paper, economic and environmental indicators are, for the first time, simultaneously assessed through statistical normalization obtained from 50 cases analyzed in the city of Seville. Furthermore, five case studies are assessed in detail in order to determine the sensitivity of the model. These renovations represent less than 30% of the cost and 6% of the ecological footprint of a new construction project. During the subsequent 25 years, the energy efficiency improvements could significantly reduce the CO2 emissions that are due to direct consumption.

More effective construction technologies are needed nowadays in order to reduce construction energy consumption during the life-cycle of buildings. Besides which, it is necessary to consider the economic feasibility and associated costs within the framework of these alternative technologies so as to favouring their practical implementation in the construction sector. In this sense, this paper presents an economic and environmental comparison of a new non-bearing façade construction solution based on the extruded unfired stabilized clay panels as opposed to three traditional solutions with similar physical, thermal, and aesthetic characteristics in terms of the exterior cladding. The proposed panels are a sandwich type configuration with an intermediate insulating material and two exterior pieces manufactured by extrusion with raw earth stabilized with alginate and animal wool fibers. In this paper, details of the constructive technology of the system are provided. From the results obtained, it is possible to conclude that the solution is a valid alternative from the environmental point of view, considerably reducing the GlobalWarming Potential and the Cumulative Energy Demand. And although the environmental improvement of the system can be considered the primary objective of this investigation, on the other hand, once executed, it will also be a competitive constructive technology from the perspective of the system’s final costs.

The construction industry is well known for its high impact on the environment; an even higher impact has taken place in recent years due to the real-estate bubble which has resulted in a surplus in the construction of dwellings in many countries. In Spain, about 500,000 dwellings were constructed during 2006–2010, which represent a 2% increase in four years. In the present work, a methodology is defined as the first step towards the creation of an effective assessment of the Ecological Footprint of this type of construction. The procedure is based on the project budget and its bill of quantities, organized by means of a systematic construction-work breakdown structure which divides the work into three major categories: materials, manpower, and machinery. Each stream generates partial footprints (i.e. energy, food, mobility, construction materials, and waste). Ninety-two dwelling construction projects, which represent the most commonly built dwellings in Spain per statistical data from the authorities, are evaluated and their ecological footprints are determined. The indicator is sensitive to various building typologies, which range from detached houses to multi-family buildings. Detached houses generate an ecological footprint per square metre constructed of 1.5 times higher than that of 4-floor multi-family buildings and the indicator remains practically constant for taller buildings. This emphasises that not only is the traditional Spanish construction of a compact city with multi-storey buildings environmentally better from the mobility standpoint, but also from the building construction standpoint.

Fuel poverty, or energy poverty, has traditionally been associated with households that cannot afford to keep their homes adequately warm and/or cool due to low income and energy inefficient dwellings. Recent studies show a need for a good understanding of levels of vulnerability and how they are shaped by poor quality housing and economic circumstances. This work, which examines the current level of vulnerability to fuel poverty in a neighbourhood in the Broughton ward of Salford using quantitative data, provides a comprehensive tool to assess fuel poverty vulnerability at a local scale in England, the Index of Vulnerable Homes (IVH), which evaluates the identification of households in or at risk of fuel poverty. The IVH results lead to an evaluation of current fuel poverty indicators in terms of their ability to assess fuel poverty vulnerability in England, providing a fuller understanding of the variety of fuel poverty situations, as well as recognizing the high prevalence of hidden fuel poverty. Additionally, having used the IVH in both England and Spain, it makes possible reflections upon how vulnerability to fuel poverty may differ in these countries, leading to relevant recommendations for policymakers to develop effective fuel poverty measures.

Construction activity is now a major consumer of natural resources. As a general rule, resource consumption has been evaluated through methodologies related to Life Cycle Analysis. This research is proposed to integrate the Ecological Footprint indicator into the building sector: to observe the difficulties and the benefits it can generate relative to other indicators. To this end, prior knowledge related to the Ecological Footprint indicator must first be adapted to the residential sector, by analyzing the construction of buildings, and secondly a calculation methodology is established in order to quantitatively determine what impacts are generated by industry according to the Ecological Footprint indicator. This methodology applies the indicator to resources used (energy, water, labour, construction materials, etc.) and to waste generated in the construction of residential buildings. The methodology is applied to a case study corresponding to the urbanization and building construction of a representative building type in Andalusia (Spain) when the building is in the planning stage. The final result is 0.384 gha/year/m 2 .

Existing tools for environmental certification of buildings are failing in their ability to reach the general public and to create social awareness, since they require not only specialized knowledge regarding construction and energy sources, but also environmental knowledge. In this paper, an open-source online tool for the estimation of the carbon footprint of residential buildings by non-specialized users is presented as a product from the OERCO2 Erasmus + project. The internal calculations, data management and operation of this tool are extensively explained. The ten most common building typologies built in the last decade in Spain are analysed by using the OERCO2 tool, and the order of magnitude of the results is analysed by comparing them to the ranges determined by other authors. The OERCO2 tool proves itself to be reliable, with its results falling within the defined logical value ranges. Moreover, the major simplification of the interface allows non-specialized users to evaluate the sustainability of buildings. Further research is oriented towards its inclusion in other environmental certification tools and in Building Information Modeling (BIM) environments.

This work identifies, in statistical reports, the main features of the homes built in Spain during 2007-2010; and the reports identify 10 representative types of residential buildings and construction solutions. The impact generated by these typologies is then assessed using the Ecological Footprint (EF) indicator, obtaining, among other results, that single-family dwellings have a 45 % higher footprint than the multifamily buildings and that the manpower represents 30 % of the total EF. Also, the footprint is evaluated per construction phase and construction system, which determines that the elements with higher impact are the structure, masonry, finishes and foundation, in that order. Finally, the total EF of dwelling construction during the period and per dwelling occupancy is assessed., Se identifican en informes estadísticos oficiales, las características principales de las viviendas construidas en España durante el período 2007 a 2010, mostrando las 10 tipologías de edificios residenciales y soluciones constructivas representativas. Se evalúa el impacto generado por dichas tipologías empleando el indicador huella ecológica (HE), obteniendo, entre otros resultados, que las viviendas unifamiliares tienen un 45 % de huella superior a las plurifamiliares y que la huella que genera la mano de obra es un 35 % de la total. También se realiza el análisis de huella por fases de obra y sistemas constructivos, que determina que los elementos de mayor impacto son, estructura, albañilería, revestimientos y cimentaciones, por ese orden. Se finaliza con el cálculo total de HE durante el período objetivo y por persona de las viviendas evaluadas.

In this paper, an environmental impact assessment has been developed for evaluating advantages and disadvantages of installing a Vertical Greenery System (hereafter VGS) on two south-oriented facades of a building, together with movable wooden slats on its windows. Initial investment has been compared to annual maintenance costs and energy savings in terms of equivalent solar energy, based on the eMergy method. An existing building in Siena (Italy) was taken as a case study. Thermal performances were simulated based on reliable parameters. These were hypothesized for modelling the envelope and windows as well the effects of the VGS and slats on indoor climate conditions. Results showed that installing the VGS and wooden slats over the south-west and south-east facades (around 800m 2 ) would decrease the cooling energy demand during warm months of around 50% and highlighted the environmental profitability of the proposed solution for a 130,000m 3 building. Compared to previously published results (98m 2 VGS of a 1000m 3 detached house) which report a quota of 15% cooling energy saving, this model demonstrates that potential benefits of VGS can significantly increase due to the scale-factor (i.e. dimension of facades and building volumes) and the combination with wooden slats.

Innovative designs, such as those taking place in nearly zero-energy buildings, need to tackle Life Cycle Cost, because reducing the impact of use can carry other collateral and unexpected costs. For example, it is interesting to include the evaluation of end-of-life costs by introducing future activities of selective dismantling and waste management, to also improve the environmental performance of the demotion project. For this purpose, it is necessary to develop methods that relate the process of selective demolition to the waste quantification and the costs derived from its management. In addition, a sensitivity analysis of end-of-life parameters allows different construction types, waste treatment options, and waste management costs to be compared. The assessment of end-of-life costs in the present work is developed by a case-based reasoning. Cost data are obtained from three actual studies which are part of the H2020 CRAVEzero project (Cost Reduction and Market Acceleration for Viable Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings). Results show that end-of-life costs are similar to traditional building typologies. The most influential materials are part of the substructure and structure of the building, such as concrete and steel products.