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.

Analyzing data from the Energy Poverty Observatory in Europe, it emerges that more than 50 million households in the EU live in energy poverty (people that cannot heat their homes during winter; cannot make their homes comfortable during the summer; pay their energy bills late). Research studies realized in the last 20 years highlight that making energy demand efficient and effective is the more significant and socially important the more it is able to involve users who are unable to sustain energy demand. The evolution of the research sees a narrowing of the field of investigation by focusing on the user dimension of energy poverty, stressing the role of citizens not only as consumer but also as producers of solutions to tackle energy poverty, real energy communities of agents. The paper aims to provide a systematic literature review highlighting the major findings of the topic, investigating the relationship between spatial and social issues, and looking at the state of energy poverty by addressing the profiling of users and consequently of services useful to overcome their current vulnerable condition. The paper is structured in two core sections. The first one gives the results of a systematic literature review on the energy/fuel poverty topic, the second one deepens the role of communities and individuals need, crucial in defining new design approaches for supportive solutions to tackle energy poverty.

Cities are responsible for 65% of energy consumption and for the 70% of CO₂ emissions. Incisive actions are fundamental to bring cities towards climate neutrality by 2050 working by and for the citizens. For this reason, the “100 climate-neutral cities Mission” anticipates the target of climate neutrality by 2030. The objective of this paper, developed within the H2020 GRETA project—GReen Energy Transition Actions (GA101022317), is to investigate energy communities and climate city contracts as key interventions to face the ambitious goal of implementing citizens-centered and climate-neutral cities. To achieve this objective, this paper is structured as follows: (1) an updated framework of European and Italian legislation concerning energy communities; (2) an overview of climate city contracts’ definition and key aspects; (3) a selection and analysis of energy communities’ case studies; (4) a description of already developed pilot climate city contracts. The results provide more advanced knowledge about EU energy communities strategies and about the possible contractual agreements that can guarantee commitment between parties and can allow the active participation of citizens in the energy system. The lessons learned contribute to the application in the GRETA Italian case study, whose first participation activities are also described in the paper.

Today digital technologies offer great opportunities in the field of Cultural Heritage (CH). After a general overview of the European policy documents on CH digitisation, the paper aims to reflect on tools, procedures and methodologies in the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as a new way of visualization, application and data collection towards accessing, understanding and safeguarding our historic built environment. The focus will be on two ongoing H2020 projects, INCEPTION and ROCK, selected to address the problem of CH digitisation and the access to the corresponding digitized resources in relation to historic buildings and urban districts. Therefore, they are presented as inspiring good practices for tackling this issue considering its impacts both at the architectural and urban scale. Stressing the potentials of enabling technologies, such as 3D laser surveys, environment and climate sensors, large crowd monitoring tools and CH analytic, they are also able to orient future research beyond 2020.

Life quality in urban contexts is related to several interconnected factors. Lots of innovative technologies allow for the gathering of real-time information, which is helpful for analysing and interpreting significant urban dynamics and citizens’ behaviours. The presence of people in outdoor environments, particularly for social and recreational purposes, can be considered as a qualitative indicator, giving evidence of a living environment. The relationship between urban areas and the climate context has been addressed in recent years by the scientific literature. However, these studies did not report the direct correlation between people’s presence and outdoor thermal comfort in outdoor spaces. The aim of this paper is to assess whether the presence of people in outdoor public spaces, detected through human presence sensors, can be associated with outdoor microclimatic conditions (both with on-site measurement and software simulation) and outdoor thermal comfort indicators (as physiological equivalent temperature). The question is whether there exists a direct correlation between outdoor microclimate in public spaces and people’s presence, and if a public event plays a role in changing it. The research compares on-site measurements of physics variables (e.g., air temperature) and people’s presence with outdoor microclimate maps by Envi-met. The case study, carried out in the framework of the H2020 project ROCK—Regeneration and Optimization of Cultural Heritage in Creative and Knowledge cities, focuses on two squares located in Bologna’s historic city center. The conclusions show that public events are the main deciding factor influencing square crowding; nevertheless, the study reveals a relationship between thermal comfort and the number of people.

As acceleration toward the transition to a carbon-neutral energy production becomes an urgent imperative, universities are called to play a multifaceted role: to produce knowledge and cutting-edge research for the pursuit of energy transition; to transform infrastructures to promote circular economy practices and a more sustainable use of their building stock; and to promote energy citizenship through formal and informal education. The authors aim to move from these considerations to critically present some actions and programs in education, research, and campus operations in which the University of Bologna is engaged. The first part presents an overview of the role of universities in this transition, with a focus on the UI GreenMetric international standard for assessing the different dimensions of sustainability. In the core section, an empirical focus is provided on Bologna and its Cesena campus through three directions: the University’s multicampus sustainable strategy (campus operations), the relevant research–action projects on energy justice and the energy transition (research), and the EN-ACTION project to foster energy citizenship and behavioral change in students and citizens (education). This study concludes that the comprehensive approach of the University of Bologna in integrating sustainability into its operations, education, and research while fostering student engagement in energy citizenship, provides a replicable model for other institutions. It highlights the need for consistent and ongoing support to ensure the long-term impact and effectiveness of sustainability initiatives. The integration of social components and engagement with civil society is crucial for fostering a collective behavioral shift toward low-carbon systems, which can be further supported by interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research approaches.