Dear Colleagues,

We are organizing a Special Issue of Sustainability concerning inclusive and energy-efficient building design. The venue is a peer-reviewed open access journal that publishes articles and communications in the interdisciplinary area of sustainability. For detailed information on the journal, we refer you to https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability.

Traditionally, efficiency and inclusivity in the built environment have been considered two distinct research, construction, and policy domains. The climate crisis and increased energy prices force governments to adopt energy efficiency measures and decarbonize the building sector. However, inclusive spaces and buildings are still considered a luxury, available only to citizens of the most developed countries.

The built environment often sets barriers to people who differ from the “standard”. An inclusive design is the human-centered design that is not based on the “standardized person”, but rather attempts to create environments that facilitate the diversity of the human condition. Future sustainable built environments need to be equitable, healthy, and energy-efficient to enable people’s participation in the community and secure their wellbeing.

The Sustainability Special Issue “Inclusive Design and Energy Efficiency in Sustainable Built Environment” aims to showcase research that closes the gap between energy efficiency and inclusivity, and explores the ways an efficient design could benefit the entirety of the human population, especially the most vulnerable groups. We welcome papers on:

• energy efficiency in the built environment;
• energy-efficient building systems;
• climate change;
• urban environment sustainability;
• urban climate;
• mitigation technologies;
• wellbeing in the building environment;
• sustainable design;
• sustainable buildings;
• enabling environments;
• social inclusion;
• user experiences;
• inclusive design;
• home modifications and assistive technology;
• environmental psychology

The listed keywords suggest just a few of many possibilities. If you are uncertain about whether your paper fits into the scope of this Special Issue, please contact the Guest Editors.

Dr. Konstantina Vasilakopoulou
Prof. Dr. Priya Rajagopalan
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• energy efficiency in the built environment
• energy-efficient building systems
• climate change
• urban environment sustainability
• urban climate
• mitigation technologies
• wellbeing in the building environment
• sustainable design
• sustainable buildings
• enabling environments
• social inclusion
• user experiences
• inclusive design
• home modifications and assistive technology
• environmental psychology

Title: Thermal loads map and overall energy analysis depending on low-effort parameters change. A commercial building case study
Authors: Raniero Sannino
Affiliation: Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA)
Abstract: Starting from the second half of 2022, the energy market, in particular the European natural gas supply, passed through an eventful period. The sanctions imposed to the Russia because of the Ukrainian war, rearranged the steadiness of the natural gas supplier to the continent. Italy im-ported almost 43% of natural gas from Russia in 2020, and the Ministry of ecologic transition es-tablished specific rules for 2022 heating periods, aimed to reduce the primary energy consumption. This work is aimed to create the map of a commercial building thermal loads as a function of effortlessly changeable boundary conditions, which have been identified for immediately facing unexpected scenarios. Moreover, the proposed method could represent an effective tool for supporting energy managers and policy-makers for complying unpredictable events. Further-more, the final and primary energy consumption has been investigated to provide a compre-hensive picture of the building energy performance. The simulation of the commercial building was carried out with DesignBuilder, an Energyplus-based software, with a dynamic calculation approach, and the effect of ranging considered parameters against the heating and cooling load has been assessed, as well as the final and primary energy estimation.