According to the Circularity Gap Report 2020, a mere 8.6% of the global economy was circular in 2019. The Global Status Report 2018 declares that building construction and operations accounted for 36% of global final energy use and 39% of energy–related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The Paris Agreement demands that the building and construction sector decarbonizes globally by 2050. This requires strategies that minimize the environmental impact of buildings and practices extending the lifecycle of their constituents within a circular resource flow. To ensure that eective measures are applied, a suitable method is needed to assess compliance in materials, processes, and design strategies within circular economy principles. The study’s assumption is that synthetic and reliable indicators for that purpose could be based on reversibility and durability features. The paper provides an overview of building design issues within the circular economy perspective, highlighting the diculty in finding circular technologies which are suitable to enhance buildings’ service life while closing material loops. The results identify reversibility and durability as potential indicators for assessing circular building technologies. The next research stage aims to further develop the rating of circularity requirements for both building technologies and entire buildings.

Among the issues most related to climate change, the built environment is also subjected to short- and long-term risks. Referring to tangible cultural heritage, materials and buildings are subjected to different types of damage that require adaptive risk prevention and containment strategies, currently missing from conventional risk assessments. Thus, there is an increasingly urgent need for scientific and technical knowledge, tools, and solutions aimed at solving critical issues in cultural heritage due to climate change. In this context, the aim of this study is to study the mechanisms of impacts brought about by climate change and the formulation of a possible set of indices as benchmarks to measure climate change’s effect on cultural heritage buildings. The study is structured on a methodology that identifies three sections: the first and second parts systematize and critically interpret data on impact mechanisms and indices for climate vulnerability and risk assessment; the third part, data processing, reports the perspective findings. The main intermediate indices, contributing to a comprehensive damage index, were identified, and a procedural protocol was developed. Finally, through the correlation of indices, a potential case study could be analyzed, and benchmarks made effective. The study reports partial results of one of the “Ecosystems of Innovation” pilot projects funded by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The study is still a work in progress and needs advancement and deepening to verify case study indices.

The responsibilities of the building sector concerning resource consumption and waste generation, as a problem of research, require a transition from a linear to a circular model in order to obtain significant positive effects on the environment. The Biomimicry approach appears to be a promising way to move the sector towards the circular economy, to meet the increasing levels of functional and environmental requirements, which is shifting the research on building materials and products toward biomimetic solutions. Along this path, the building envelope emerges as an interesting application field concerning its adaptive behaviour towards external conditions. In this field of research, the knowledge gap concerns the need for criteria to classify the biomimetic behaviour of building materials under operating conditions and to identify their environmental effects, as well as their compliance with the principles of the circular economy. The study provides a methodology to develop a set of classification criteria applicable to biomimetic materials and products which are suitable for application in the building envelope and a related set of markers that identify the strongest environmental relationships and implications related to the aptitude for integrating circular economy principles. The mapping highlights the absence of some relationships thus highlighting potential limitations of biomimetic materials/products within circular economy principles and thus current research limits. The results obtained may be useful to evaluate and compare biomimetic materials and products for the building envelope, whilst also providing the first step for further research on their environmental implications within circular economy processes. HIGHLIGHTS

The aim of the research is to study and to test bio-mixture for laminas to use in construction field components. Composite materials are becoming more common in different sectors, but their embodied energy is an environmental problem. For this, in recent years, the researchers investigate new mixtures for composites, in particular with vegetable fibers and bio-based epoxy resin. The research carried out different laboratory tests for material and mechanical characterization, starting from the analysis of vegetable fibers, and arriving to test different kind of laminas with sundry fabrics and bio-based epoxy resin. In the most general organization of the theme, the research has the overall objective to contribute to reduce composites environmental impacts, with the promotion of local production chains about innovative materials from renewable and sustainable sources.