Recent activity in Italy and the Alpine European Region

Our colleagues from iiSBE Italia in Torino, Andrea Moro and Claudio Capitanio, have sent us some news about what they and their other colleagues have been doing over the last few months.

To understand the following report, you should first have a strong espresso and then take a look at the acronyms for the research initiatives and groups below, and then read the news story:

  • CABEE: Capitalizing Alpine Building Evaluation Experiences
  • CEC5: a CESBA tool that is focused on the implementation of a common certification procedure for renewable energies and energy efficient public buildings
  • CESBA: Common European Sustainable Building Assessment
  • CLUE: Climate-neutral Urban Districts in Europe
  • FASUDIR: Friendly and Affordable Sustainable Urban Districts Retrofitting
  • ITACA: Federal Association of the Italian Regions
  • ITC-CNR: Technology institute of the Italian National Research Council
  • KPI: Key Performance Indicators
  • Protocollo ITACA: performance rating system developed by iiSBE Italia and used by ITACA
  • UNI: Italian national standardization body
  • VISIBLE: Valorization of Sustainable Alpine Space nearly zero-energy Building and Low-carbon Experiences

Protocollo ITACA

We are finalizing in collaboration with ITACA and UNI the work to transform Protocollo ITACA into a national standard (Prassi UNI Protocollo ITACA). This is a major step for our Protocollo tool, which is partly based on a previous version of SBTool. UNI operates like DIN in Germany or ASHRAE in US. The new standard will be officially delivered in June.

The national certification process Protocollo ITACA is also going forward. iiSBE Italia, Accredia, ITACA and ITC-CNR developed a technical regulation (RT33) in July 2013 for the accreditation of certification bodies in conformity to Protocollo ITACA. This work was done for Accredia, the national (and unique) accreditation body. In February, iISBE Italia also delivered the first qualification course for Protocollo ITACA assessors.

Through the combination of a national standard (Prassi UNI) and the national accreditation system (open and transparent) based on the Accredia RT33, we have reached the final target after 14 years of work: the implementation of the Italian national certification system for sustainable building based on SBTool.

There will be a national registry of certifications managed by a new legal entity, the Protocollo ITACA Committee. The founding members are ITACA, iiSBE Italia, ITC-CNR and all the Italian Regions.

Assessment activities in Regione Piemonte

Closer to home, we are proceeding with the assessment activities carried out on behalf of Regione Piemonte: social housing (about 200 buildings certified), the new office building of the region (skyscraper Fuksas) and the retail buildings that need a regional authorization.
Research

Currently we are involved in 5 EU funded projects: CABEE, VIsible, CEC5, CLUE and FASUDIR.

  • In CABEE and VIsible we are subcontractors to the Region Piemonte.
  • In CEC5 we are subcontractors to the City of Udine.
  • In CLUE we are subcontractors to the City of Torino.
  • In FASUDIR we are partners.
  • All of these projects deal with the issue of assessment, at building (CABEE, CEC5) and urban (CLUE, FASUDIR) scales. They are also part of the CESBA initiative. On July 1st in Torino we will have a CESBA day to further discuss how to implement the European harmonization of assessment systems. The EC intends to define a common set of KPI for building assessment in Europe and they have asked CESBA to cooperate.

    Training

    We are following with our training for professionals on Protocollo ITACA. About 300 architects and engineers have been qualified (http://www.iisbeitalia.org/formazione/esperti-protocollo-itaca/residenziale).

    We have also started to train assessors for the RT33 Protocollo ITACA, as mentioned before.

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    14-04-01_invitation_2nd-CESBA-workshop_turin.pdf1002.69 KB
    CESBA_Leaflet.pdf214.2 KB
    FASUDIR_factsheet_271113.pdf2.93 MB