The contribution of the ITACA Protocol in the control of the environmental quality in residential buildings and the subsequent contribution to the adaptation to climatic change

During the last years the aim to reduce environmental impacts in the building sector has led to the development of assessment methods called protocols, to certify the sustainable quality of the building, such as the ITACA Protocol. In the present work the national version 2011 of the ITACA Protocol has been applied to several residential buildings study cases, and the resulting performances have been compared with a reference building with the same geometric shape and performances within the limit of the law. These results have been compared with the average energy performance of an Italian residential estate, to evaluate the contribution to climate change adaption. Furthermore, the comparison has also been carried out from the costs point of view, to verify the necessity of long-term subsidizing policies. The criteria used to analyze the effective impact reduction are: primary energy for heating and hot water and related CO2 emissions. The average value of savings in energy consumption obtained in the evaluated building (designed and certified with the ITACA Protocol, compared to reaching the law limit value) is 51.25 kWh/m2·y, with corresponding 8.52 kg CO2/m2·y emissions saved. Intervening on 22 % of the current Italian housing estates with the performances of the study cases, results in a reduction of the energy load of 20.10 %. Whilst from the technical point of view the application could be easily adopted, the high costs of these interventions still have a long payback period, and it could be necessary to provide a durable public incentive