Achieving climate neutrality in cities requires a fundamental transformation of urban energy systems, integrating sustainability principles across multiple scales—from individual buildings to entire districts. This transition necessitates a shift towards energy-efficient technologies, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and the widespread adoption of renewable energy sources. At the same time, it must consider the social and economic dimensions of sustainability, ensuring that solutions are inclusive, affordable, and adaptable to diverse urban contexts.
This track explores the evaluation frameworks for supporting decision making in the context of energy transition and climate neutrality at the urban level, providing insights into effective planning, policy-making, and implementation strategies. The focus includes energy renovations, low-energy and low-emission buildings, nearly Zero or Positive Energy Buildings (nZEB or PEB), Positive Energy Districts (PED), and urban plans for climate-neutral cities.
We welcome submissions on, but not limited to, the following topics:
Life cycle sustainability evaluations at building, district and urban levels
Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) applied to the building sector
Sustainability protocols
Multi-criteria decision making to inform post-carbon urban planning and city concept
Innovative aspects
Integrated Sustainability Assessment: Inclusion of environmental, social, and economic sustainability domains.
Comprehensive Sustainability Assessment: Evaluation of trade-offs and burden shifting.
Integrated Urban-Energy Planning: Aligning climate neutral initiatives with urban regeneration, mobility, and land-use strategies.
Local Energy Communities: Enabling citizen participation and decentralized energy governance within PEDs.
Scalability & Replication: Lessons learned from implemented projects and strategies for wider adoption in diverse urban contexts.