Low-Carbon Buildings and Climate Change Mitigation

Dear Colleagues,

The building sector is one of the main energy-consuming sectors globally, with about one third of total final energy use and nearly 40% of total energy-related carbon footprint. Both the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlight the importance and necessity of new energy solutions to decarbonise the building sector. Today, a considerable effort has been devoted to making buildings and communities carbon neutralise by retrofitting them and integrating renewable energy systems such as solar PV, heat pumps, digitalisation and smart control of HVAC systems, energy storage, and demand-side management technologies, etc.

In Europe, EU member states adopted the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EU) 2018/844, and Energy Efficiency Directive ((EU) 2018/2002), which focus on the energy efficiency and performance, as well as decarbonisation of the building stock by 2050. According to the renovation strategies each member state must establish a long-term renovation solution to assist the retrofitting of the national residential and tertiary building sectors into a high-performance building stock by 2050, where all new constructed buildings are required to be nearly zero-energy from 2021 onwards. Additionally, the utilisation of smart technologies, digitalisation, and modernisation of the building stock is highly encouraged and recommended.

Research, development, and innovation are essential to achieve net zero carbon emissions goals by 2050, and to make buildings and communities sustainable and energy resilient. This Special Issue intends to promote a further understanding of relevant R&D topic in the smart buildings and sustainability sector. In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Green Buildings
• Smart Buildings
• Building Carbon Emissions
• Zero Energy / Carbon Buildings
• Building Energy Systems
• Combined Cooling, Heat & Power Systems (CCHP)
• Optimal Design / Control of Building Integrated Systems
• Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) Systems
• Thermal Energy Storage
• Green Walls and Roofs
• Adaptive Climatic Responsive Building Design
• High-Performance Building Envelops
• Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV)
• Building Energy Performance Assessment
• Engineered / Strain-Hardening Cementitious Composites (ECC/SHCC)
• Ultra-High-Performance Concrete (UHPC)
• Low-Carbon Concrete
• Building Energy Management
• Demand Response
• Energy Flexibility
• Blockchain Technology for Smart Buildings
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Artificial Intelligence Application for Buildings
• Passive and Active Energy Strategies for Buildings
• Energy Certification and Compliance
• Building Energy Modelling Software and Tools
• Building Energy Simulation and Optimisation
• Interoperable Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Simulation
• Whole Building Energy Modelling and Simulation
• Multi-Scale Energy Modelling (Building to National Scale)
• Energy Policy and Planning at National Scale
• Life Cycle Energy Analysis of Buildings
• Life Cycle Carbon Analysis of Buildings

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Mohammad Saffari
Dr. Valeria Palomba
Dr. Reihaneh Aghamolaei
Guest Editors

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