This paper analyzes the impact of a change in the thermal insulating material on both the energy and environmental performance of a building, evaluated through two different green building assessment methods: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and Istituto per l’innovazione e Trasparenza degli Appalti e la Compatibilità Ambientale (ITACA). LEED is one of the most qualified rating systems at an international level; it assesses building sustainability thanks to a point-based system where credits are divided into six different categories. One of these is fully related to building materials. The ITACA procedure derives from the international evaluation system Sustainable Building Tool (SBTool), modified according to the Italian context. In the region of Umbria, ITACA certification is composed of 20 technical sheets, which are classified into five macro-areas. The analysis was developed on a residential building located in the central Italy. It was built taking into account the principles of sustainability as far as both structural and technical solutions are concerned. In order to evaluate the influence of thermal insulating material, different configurations of the envelope were considered, replacing the original material (glass wool) with a synthetic one (expanded polystyrene, EPS) and two natural materials (wood fiber and kenaf). The study aims to highlight how the materials characteristics can affect building energy and environmental performance and to point out the different approaches of the analyzed protocols.

Light-emitting diodes (LED) are a promising light source for the cultivation of edible vegetables in greenhouses. The spectral radiation of the light sources has an impact on plants physiological parameters, as well as on morphological features. In this study the growth of spinach plants has been carried out in experimental boxes under two white LED treatments having different correlate color temperature (CCT): the cold lighting (CL) corresponded to 6500 K, while the warm lighting (WL) to 3000 K. The work was aimed to investigate the influence of the two light spectra on plant development and comparing the results. Results showed that the different lighting treatments impact differently on plant development and on growth parameters.

Buildings are heavily responsible for energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. Increasing their energy efficiency is in the direction of the EU strategies; and this is consistent with EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD 2010/31/EU), 2010. In this view the design and management of daylight and artificial light can play a fundamental role. In this paper, a method to optimize indoor lighting design from energy efficiency, economic and environmental viewpoints is presented. The optimization was developed through the Genetic Algorithms technique and the optimal layout in terms of number, location and mounting heights of luminaires in a generic office room was evaluated. Solutions with different types of light sources, nominal luminous flux and photometric distribution curves were compared and the cost effectiveness of these alternatives was also considered. The systems resulting from the optimization show increased uniformity of illuminance, a reduction of the number of luminaires and a decrease of the maximum UGR values, proving the effectiveness of the technique in the lighting design field. Results show that current methods for lighting design can still be improved to achieve optimal configurations in terms of energy efficiency and cost effectiveness.

The periodic stabilized regime is the condition where the temperature of each point of a certain environment varies following a periodic law. This phenomenon occurs in many practical applications, such as passive or ancient buildings not equipped with Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning HVAC systems and located in latitudes where the temperature greatly varies with Earth’s daily cycles. Despite that, the study of transient phenomena is often simplified, i.e., considering negligible the thermal response of the indoor microclimate. An exact solution to enclosures whose microclimate is free to evolve under a periodic stabilized regime does not exist nowadays, also from an analytical point of view. The aim of this study is to parametrically analyze the thermal variations inside a room when a transient periodic temperature is applied on one side. The phenomenon has been numerically studied through Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and analytically validated using a function that reproduces the daily variation of the outdoor temperature. The results of this research would lay the groundwork to develop analytical correlations to solve and predict the thermal behavior of environments subject to a periodic stabilized regime.