Values and Functions for Future Cities

This research proposes an application of a MultiCriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) in the adaptive reuse framework, which is able to structure the complex decision process required for the effective reuse of an historic district. Nowadays, many cities are facing an economic, financial, social and urban decline. This is particularly true when thinking about historic districts, which are usually characterized by high unique cultural values but, at the same time, show difficult characteristics in terms of comfort and security. Accordingly, the planning rules to be applied to the historic districts need to be re-written overcoming the traditional logics. The proposed adaptive reuse framework deals with the application of the Macbeth method. To properly test, develop and illustrate the framework we conducted an experimental validation through a case study: the urban regeneration of an historical district in Biella (Italy) starting from the adaptive reuse of an historic building.

The impact of properly managing energy in hospitals is significant, due to the high bills and polluting emissions, and is complex, due to the wide range of energy consuming equipment to be kept always running. Energy efficiency plans in hospitals, which are pivotal in the European wide effort to redevelop existing buildings, have to be carried out as a part of a wider redesign process and must encompass complex data analysis and modeling. Based on the activity carried out within the European funded project H2020/MSCA/STEER, this work elaborates on the methodology, as tested on a building information model of a health center in Sicily, to identify positive and negative aspects of energy-related technology options to keep hospitals efficient. The main steps of the methodology carried out in the health center were: (1) collect data and input it in a digital model; (2) create and test a simplified quasi-steady state model of the building; (3) create a dynamic simulation model of the building; (4) run dynamic and simplified model simulations of the energy performance of the building; (5) compare results obtained from the two models in various scenarios, showing that the relevant differences after indicative interventions and parameter changes are equivalent.

When speaking about sustainability in urban and territorial transformations, many dimensions have to be taken into account, thus asking for integrated approaches able to support complex decision-making processes. As it is well known, economic development has an ecological cost; for this reason, it is relevant to investigate the link existing between ecology and economics when addressing territorial planning and environmental policies. A very promising theory in this context is provided by the notion of Ecosystem Services (ESs) that have been defined as the benefits that humans derive, directly or indirectly, from ecosystem functions. More specifically, the article explores the perspectives offered by the application of the Life Satisfaction Approach (LSA) in the estimation of the economic benefits delivered by ESs, proposing an innovative methodological path linking biophysical and economic values.

Empirical evidence has found a correlation between Energy Performance (EPC) rankings and housing prices. Though, little attention has been devoted to research the spatial implications of EPC marginal prices. This paper attempts to fill this gap using a geographical-weighted-regression, departing from listing prices for Barcelona. The results suggest the existence of a premium equivalent to 1.7% for each EPC ranking, which nearly double the previous reported evidence in this city. Also, the impact shows a non-stationary distribution across urban space. As a matter of fact, the higher the impact, the lower the price of apartments and their quality. The apartments portraying the larger impact are located in peripheral areas inhabited by medium and low-income population. So, the equity of less wealthy population witnesses the largest brown discount.

With reference to the current topic of the energy efficiency of residential properties, the aim of this research is to analyze the contribution of the energy performance component on the housing prices. The study has been carried out on a sample of two hundred residential properties recently sold and located in the city of Bari (Italy). In addition to the characteristics of energy performance, the main influencing factors considered by buyers and sellers in the transactions have been detected. For this purpose, a data-driven technique has been implemented, that employs a genetic algorithm to identify the best functional expressions. The outputs obtained highlight an appreciable influence of the energy factors on the housing prices. The results could be a useful support for both the private and public actors operating in the field of residential property management.

This paper aims to examine the theme of energy retrofit within the circumscribed field of refurbishment interventions on load-bearing masonry buildings built in the early 20th century. These include a remarkable share of the fabric of many European cities and, in particular, they can be found in geographical areas characterized by a Mediterranean (mild) climate. The main objective is to increase the climate resilience of the buildings by verifying the economic feasibility and the environmental sustainability of the interventions, and moreover by observing the specific architectural features of the buildings. We put forward alternative retrofit solutions carrying out synoptic comparisons of several technological solutions and types of materials, assisted by the use of digital tools such as BIM. In order to increase the environmental compatibility of the intervention, this article carries out a closer examination of the comparison between the employment of nanostructured, conventional—of synthetic origin- and natural materials. The selection of the best intervention solution required the elaboration of an iterative flexible integrated process of assessment of energy, technological, economic, environmental and architectural aspects. The methodology we propose here is applied to the case study of Palazzo Utveggio (Palermo, Italy).

The choice of different kind of technologies to be adopted for the construction of road pavement is a subject of great interest both in the international and in the Italian context. Pavement is one of the most expensive component in the road infrastructure system. The analysis of the literature, as well as the empirical experiences, shows that from a sustainable perspective the decision problem concerning the choice of technologies to be adopted, has turned the attention towards evaluation methodologies able to integrate aspects that are not directly measurable in monetary terms, such as the environmental aspects (Zhang et al. 2010; Lidicker et al. 2013; Torres-Machi et al. 2017). The present contribution proposes an Integrated Evaluation System to support the choice between two different road paving technologies, namely interlocking concrete blocks paving and bituminous conglomerate. In order to evaluate the most convenient and sustainable option by considering economic and environmental costs, the proposed approach is based on the integration of different evaluation models, each capable of capturing multiple and complementary aspects. Specifically, the Life Cycle Costing Analysis (LCCA) has been firstly applied, as a decision criterion introduced by the Legislative Decree 50/2016 for the evaluation of the financial aspects related to the entire products’ life cycle. The results obtained are then verified according to the Whole Life Costing (WLC) approach, by introducing also the “Event related costs” in addition to the main environmental costs. Finally, the choice between the different road paving alternatives has been supported by a Multicriteria Analysis, that allows to carry on the comparison between the two abovementioned options by a comprehensive analytical framework based on the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. The proposed evaluation approach allows to test the robustness and the degree of suitability of the alternative options under investigation by pointing out the trade-off among all the aspects involved and by integrating three different methodologies.

Green roofs represent a suitable option for industrial buildings refurbishment, providing private and social benefits. Nowadays, in Italy green roof technology is still uncommon, because of high installation cost that drives the choice towards more traditional performing solutions, such as cool roofs (CRs). Thus, a thorough valuation of green roofs benefits in urban contexts is required to encourage their diffusion. This paper aims to valuate private and social costs and benefits generated by extensive green roofs (EGRs) compared with cool roofs in three Italian cities: Trieste, Ancona and Palermo. These contexts are characterized by different Mediterranean climate conditions (North, Centre and South Italy); moreover, residential areas overlooking industrial settlements take place in each of them, so it is possible to hypothesize a potential enhancement of landscape value in these properties, allowing to compare aesthetic benefits due to green roofs upon industrial buildings. The study has been based on literature review and on simulation of energy performances of EGR and CR alternatively considered as refurbishment solution for a reference industrial building taking place in each industrial settlement. For the social side, the externalities deriving from EGRs and CRs, such as aesthetic enhancement, biodiversity preservation and natural habitat provision, carbon reduction, air quality improvement, stormwater control, have been monetized according to available data for the cases of study. The analysis demonstrates that a private investor has a poor convenience to implement EGR rather than CR. On the other, a positive Net Present Value (NPV) derives from social cost-benefit analysis comparing EGR and CR, due to the EGR positive externalities. The valuation of the positive externalities let the calculation of economic incentives amount to promote the diffusion of green roofs in the Mediterranean area. On this basis, an annual reduction of local property tax has been considered as incentive form. Further, a sensitivity analysis with Monte Carlo simulation of both private and social benefits evaluation has been performed for each of three case studies. This technique properly evaluates the final effects on private investments in the presence of random unpredictable variables, depending either on climate conditions or on market observation, that influence their economic affordability. Finally, through the comparison of the three contexts, an overall discussion about of the influence of climate and urban conditions on the economic analysis has been conducted.

Over the last decade, households’ preferences about energy efficiency measures in the residential sector have been the focus of a growing body research employing models based on revealed and stated preferences. Analysis of households’ energy consumption and demand elasticities were carried out before with the intent to forecast the potential of energy efficiency programs, but the recent concerns about climate change have drawn attention to the causes of this problem. As a result, the residential and renewable energy sectors have become strategic for the human being’s future. Different retrofit measures and technical solutions are now available for the new buildings, but the existing residential stock is more difficult to improve. More specifically, this implies the investment decision of heterogeneous groups of homeowners and landlords who differ in terms of the characteristics of their assets, their financial possibilities and time preferences. Valuation models have helped to forecast the demand of both market and public goods. Based on different approaches and theories, these applications have opened new avenues of research, but leaving some questions unanswered. This work tries to take stock of a debate that is still open by comparing experiments based on revealed and stated preferences in this specific field.

Energy produced from renewable sources has assumed an increasingly central role, thanks to the investments in renewable energy and the agreements reached during the last Conferences of the Parties. This paper deals with the economic-estimative evaluation of two photovoltaic plants with similar peak power and geographic position located precisely in the areas of Mandatoriccio and Campana (Calabria, South Italy). The evaluation method used is the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF), a financial procedure that allows to simulate the entire life cycle of the photovoltaic system, from the acquisition date. This method has been implemented by applying an experimental combination of the Build up Approach and the analytical method based on the ascending and descending influences that act on the specific risks related to photovoltaic investment. This paper also highlights the importance of the energy potentially produced by the photovoltaic plants to obtain a very objective estimation value. For this purpose, the annual energy production was estimated using the simplified Siegel method. Thus it was possible to compare Siegel data with real ones supplied by their managers, to carry out a comparative estimative analysis of the two photovoltaic plants covered by our article.

In the world the cities development must take place through urban sustainable interventions. This aims at promoting city economic growth, protecting citizens health and safeguarding natural and environmental components. In this perspective, forestry initiatives, raise the environmental, social and cultural quality level, as well as the income capacity of territory urban portions in joint manner. These are multiple benefits, noted as eco-systemic services, which provide regulation, support and recreational activities for population. However, the urban interventions including, also and not only, forestry—definable as Ecosystem Integrated Forestry Projects (EIFP)—are less considered as one of the main action modalities to apply within urbanized areas. This is due to the complexity both to jointly evaluate eco-system services produced by EIFP, both to develop initiatives in urban areas and provide services considering not only specific dimensional standards, but also the multidimensional effects that single initiative generates within urban context of reference. Thus, an economic evaluation methodology is defined according to multi-criteria logic based on the system of functional relationships between objectives, targets and performance indicators. The proposed methodology helps to define logical-mathematical models able to answer different evaluation questions related to EIFP. The construction of such models can be made using Linear Programming algorithms as tools for expressing functional relations between elements characterizing the problem to be solved.

The search for new tools to regenerate existing cities in an economically and environmentally sustainable way is at the heart of a lively debate at national and international level. The collective agenda is focused on the search for innovative production processes that guarantee at the same time durable, economic and minimum consumption of environmental resources interventions. This objective can be pursued by adopting the new paradigm of industrialization capable of capturing variety and efficiency through the use of new technologies. The aim of the research is to investigate, through a qualitative analysis of an Italian case study of a hotel construction process, what are the benefits and costs both of a private nature—for the construction companies and any developers—and of a public nature—related to the community—linked to an off-site project. The case study analyzed highlights how, compared to traditional construction procedures on site, the off-site construction is able to reduce by more than half the costs and timing of design and implementation. Finally, off-site construction helps to reduce the waste of resources and gives the possibility of disassembling and reusing construction components in other places and the reuse of materials in line with other industrial sectors and according to the principles of the circular economy.

An urban park provides many environmental and recreational facilities and services, and moreover it may become a catalyst for social energies and an instrument of community identification. This paper analyses whether participation and bottom-up planning may compensate institutional absences in implementation of urban parks, and how multiple criteria model may support socially shared decisions about their management. These issues are examined from the singular case of Parco Uditore in Palermo (Italy) that is located in a land which has been surprisingly undeveloped, despite the expansion of the city. The phases of promotion, planning and implementation of the park were the result of a synergistic but spontaneous collaboration of multiple actors, whereas an Analytic Network Process model has been built in the current management phase. The model has been provided for supporting a structured participatory process between promoters-managers and users for the selection of the best project among several alternatives, in order to strengthen the environmental, recreational and social role of the park.

Current rates in population growth and urbanization are threatening sustainability. Increasing soil consumption and dwellings with inadequate characteristics need to be counteracted to ensure well-being of present and future populations. Urban planning is currently characterized by an approach based on standards and restrictions, and, as such, is unable to cope with the above problems. An Ecosystem Service (ES) approach can be valuable in assessing current quality of life in urban settlements and in planning for its improvement. Green open spaces and relationships between urban, peri-urban and rural areas are very important in the provision of Ecosystem Services (ESs) to built-up areas. While many authors focus on approaches aiming to provide a monetary value for ESs, others are more interested in how to operationalize ES use in planning, without having to assess ES monetary value. The authors propose an integrated AMC-GIS approach aiming to improve planning by providing a three-dimensional spatial analysis of productive, protective and cultural-recreational ESs based on the integration of the three RGB channels. Resulting maps provide a spatial representation of the mix of the three ES categories and stress the multifunctional role of many open spaces. Although the model requires further refinement and testing, preliminary results show that this approach may represent an innovative tool both for urban planning and design and for monitoring and correcting urban projects that are already underway.

The concept of Ecosystem Services (ES), namely the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems, clearly highlights the added value that environment and landscape conservation provides for the society and the economy and, more generally, for human well-being. In the last decade, several studies dealt with the needs and ways of integrating ES evaluation into spatial planning policies to foster sustainable development. More recently, the relationship between ES evaluation and landscape design has been increasingly investigated too, and ES have been proposed as a conceptual framework for addressing landscape architecture towards multifunctionality objectives. This chapter presents the first outcomes of an applied research that assumed ES evaluation—understood both as biophysical assessment and economic valuation—as a tool to sustain landscape design choices at the local scale. The study evaluated ES in a rural peri-urban area of Chieri (Turin, Italy), to support the project of a rural-recreational park. In the envisaged park, agricultural, natural and recreational areas coexist and a more sustainable relationship between the dense city and its peri-urban context is promoted. ES evaluation allowed to highlight at the site-scale the ES performance of alternative design choices and to draft possible pathways for the implementation of Payment for Ecosystem Services schemes.

The natural environment in urban areas, often described as “urban green spaces”, is recognized by numerous researches and experiences as an important element because provide indirect and direct benefits to human health and well-being. Among the objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Goal 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities, is specifically dedicated to urban systems and its ambitious goal is “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. The “urban green spaces” is a heritage of the complex city, which requires careful assessment that considers not only the economic variable, but also the social, environmental and institutional ones. The “urban green spaces” destined to agricultural activities, defined “urban gardens”, are able to offer answers to renewed food, environmental and socio-cultural needs. They can therefore be an important instrument for the integration between building renovation and natural and agricultural environments and could contribute to reducing the vulnerability of the urban system. Despite growing attention to “urban gardens” in the scientific literature, their inclusion in urban planning is not yet seen as a strategic element for a sustainable, resilient and inclusive social city model. The research aims to define the value of urban agriculture as an important instrument to regenerate abandoned or degraded urban areas, with a prevalent social and inclusive function. The proposed research is developed in the neighborhood of the city of Catania (Italy), called “Librino”. The research analyzes the relations among the beneficiaries of the “urban gardens” of Librino with the aim of assessing the social and inclusive function of the urban agricultural cor of the municipal initiative, applying the Social Network Analysis (SNA) methodology.

The intensification and progressive urban growth of the last decades has led to a significant loss of green and naturalistic areas in our cities. Above all in Italy, the creation of new public green spaces can’t keep up with the development of the built-up areas. Although it is necessary to provide citizens, through the planning and design of cities, with standards relating to green spaces, the endowment of these often seems lacking, not even meeting the minimum requirements. Living in the city today does not mean living well. Migration from rural areas has progressively increased urban density and anthropogenic pressure towards natural ecosystems. For this reason, in 2015 the United Nations approved the Global Agenda for Sustainable Development (https://​sustainabledevel​opment.​un.​org). In particular, Objective 11 of the 2030 Agenda aims to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, durable and sustainable” through actions aimed at “protecting and safeguarding the cultural and natural heritage of the world”. Based on this perspective, the objective of the present study is to provide the public operator with elements able to bring out the economic and social benefits related to the adoption of policies of regeneration, reconstruction, recovery, reuse of natural resources and landscape of an important naturalistic area progressively and inexorably abandoned: the Diecimare Park. This is a naturalistic oasis, managed for years by the WWF, an area occupied by chestnut groves and beech trees, elms, alders and poplars planted in the 1700s on the hills that separate the Lattari mountains from the Picentini mountains extending into the municipalities of Cava de’ Tirreni, Mercato San Severino and Baronissi. It is a very precious area to be protected and rediscovered as it constitutes a veritable spontaneous botanical garden where hundreds of species of flowers and fauna are mixed. Making an economic assessment of natural and forested public resources to improve and implement services offered to users (information totems, creation of shuttles to/from the city center, creation of car parks, redevelopment of existing paths, creation of new bird observation posts, provision of suitable areas for recreational activities, guided visits by experts, etc.) allows to relate the size of the expenditure to be incurred for the recovery of the forest heritage. These economic benefits can often “escape the market”. As they are a public resource, but, through specially prepared assessments, such as the Contingent Valuation (CV) that uses questionnaires to be given to a sample of tourists and residents we can “capture” some intangible benefits such as preserving the quality of life and biodiversity.

The paper investigates the combined use of storytelling and the Simos-Roy-Figueira (SRF) method to support the identification of the most important decision criteria in a decision process concerning a valorization strategy for a UNESCO’s MaB reserve. The approach is illustrated with an Italian case study (“CollinaPo”), describing one of the four focus groups where it has been applied, as part of a training course to discover and valorize the values and peculiarities of the area. The choice of a combination of storytelling and SRF has been also induced by the very varied composition of the workshop participants: the two methods are intuitive and entertaining, the latter in particular allows to select and weight the criteria on a subjective scale that stimulate the stakeholders’ acceptance. The fact that several common criteria arose across of different groups despite the limited time and the variety of the participants, seemed a positive indicator of the goodness of the choice. The participants pointed out this sense of “belonging” to UNESCO’s MaB reserve “CollinaPo” beyond the division into individual municipalities, expressing a clear vision of the need to act as a “network” on the territory to reinforce the attractiveness of the area. Even if the article illustrates the results of a single case, it incorporates a series of reasoning related to three workshops already done in the same project, and other applications are scheduled.

Proposing effective strategies in a sustainable development perspective is the focus of considerable debates, which often develop into uncertain and vulnerable decision contexts. Numbers and quantitative information in fact often dominate the process of decision-making but they are not easily comprehensible through quick and simple reasoning. Nonetheless, the huge quantities of data that describe our cities and regions could provide excellent bases to analyze spatial data in order to assess territories and simulate future development scenarios. The application of innovative digital tools in the analysis of territorial issues offers new advantages and opportunities for the improvement of communication values in policies and decision-making processes, concurring to overcome conventional approaches to territorial management. The paper describes the application of the Interactive Visualization Tool (InViTo), a web tool based on maps and visual analysis allowing data to be filtered, explored, interconnected and compared on a visual interface. Data visualization, intended as the way to see the unseen (McCormick et al. in Computer Graphics 21(6), 1987), is here used as a new paradigm to highlight the positive and negative effects on spatial systems considering the impacts of choice-alternatives along multiple dimensions. The correlation between information and their localization generates an essential instrument for the knowledge of urban dynamics and resilience in answering to specific policies. The investigation of a number of case studies shows the possibilities and opportunities given by the use of InViTo in creating a shared knowledge between actors involved in decision-making processes and in offering a challenge for integrating new perspectives on the analysis of future cities and regions.

The new Italian Procurement Code—L.D. n. 50, 2016—implementing the 2014 European Union Directive, introduced BIM (Building Information Modeling) as an innovative approach to digitalize the construction sector. The recent Decree n. 560 of December 1st 2017 defines the methods and schedule for the gradual introduction of the BIM for the design, execution and management of construction works. BIM procedures involve a radical change in the design approach that goes from the graphical representation to the simulation of a process, both in the field of new constructions and in the field of Cultural Heritage conservation. In this perspective the article shows the results of a survey carried out on historic buildings. It aimed at verifying how much the modeling has remained confined to a low level of development (LOD A, according to the UNI 11337 standard is linked to a merely symbolic level) and those who have gone further by integrating specific and detailed information that allow real time to evaluate the sustainability of different alternatives. The article, which represents a first step of an ongoing research, starting from the regulatory framework of the BIM in Italy, highlights its potential (Sect. 1); the issue of the evaluation is deepened (Sect. 2), with particular reference to the 5D-BIM Project cost management and to the Heritage Building Information Modeling (HBIM).

Traditionally, local energy planning has been carried out following a sectorial approach, neglecting the long-term effects of energy policies, not considering social and environmental elements and omitting important actors involved. More innovative approaches lead to consider evaluation models able to take into account the full range of impacts generated at the level of utilities, end-users and society in general. This chapter aims to provide a reflection on the role of assessment tools in decision-making processes related to energy retrofit operations at architectural and urban level, presenting a series of recent and innovative experiments developed in the joined research group of the Energy Center Lab at Politecnico di Torino (Italy). Different techniques were applied to real case studies to provide an answer to concrete evaluation problems in the energy field. The results of the various applications show that the proposed valuation techniques offer useful tools to support local energy planning processes according to integrated energy-economic models.

As it is well known, in Western countries cities are experiencing negative effects due to decentralization and deindustrialization, that have brought economic crisis and urban decline. In order to contrast such decline, urban regeneration is getting more and more important in the current political agenda. In fact, urban regeneration means not only building-restoration operations, but also programs aiming at eliminating social decline, increasing the quality of life of the inhabitants, supporting the valorization of cultural resources, protecting the environmental system, bringing economic development, and so on. Urban regeneration looks at urban areas as complex and dynamic systems, in which different processes (physical, social, environmental and economic) drive the transition and the generation of important changes. This paper aims to reflect on urban problems and regeneration operations, focusing in particular on the role of evaluation tools for supporting decision-making in this context. Starting from the analysis of a real case study related to a critical area in the city of Turin, the article will propose different evaluation tools able to produce a complete picture of the problem and to define possible long-term visions for the requalification of the site.

The aim of this paper is to propose a methodology for supporting decision making processes in urban regeneration projects. Focus is posed on economic–environmental sustainability evaluation of building retrofit projects, at district scale, in presence of risk and uncertainty. An application of a conjoint Probability Analysis with Life-Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) is proposed for selecting the preferable solution between technological alternative scenarios with different energy production systems. The model input (cost drivers) and model output (Global Cost) are expressed in stochastic terms. A complex project is proposed as a case-study: a social-housing district in a town in Northern Italy.

This contribution deals with the energy-environmental interventions to be encouraged and subsidized over the implementation of the Detailed Renovation Program of Ragusa Superiore, Italy. It proposes a global economic-evaluative strategic planning pattern supporting decision-making in developing a specific energy-environmental equalization program. Starting from the huge database of the GIS describing the Architectural Units forming the old town’s urban fabric, the pattern features each of them with several architectural and energy attributes, so that each of them can be sorted among the different Categories of Intervention, ranging from the conservative to the transformative ones. Furthermore, the energy characteristics of all the AUs of the sample have been modelled in order to calculate the energy performance to be improved. The combination of architectural and energy characteristics provides the profile of each AU according to which the pattern associates to it the appropriate CI and calculates the related cost and real estate market price surplus to be used for the equalization. By releasing the constraint according to which an AU is sorted to a specific CI, the pattern is able to design several global strategies that can be ranked by performing a MAVT model.

The issue of energy efficiency in buildings is now of prime importance, both in terms of financial and environmental impacts. In this sense, the broad literature is expressed in agreement. The theme, which is certainly important for the entire construction sector, is analyzed here taking as a reference the off-site construction, sometimes little investigated in sector studies, both with regard to new buildings and with regard to existing prefabricated buildings. In the first case, in fact, new buildings must comply with the increasingly stringent energy standards that national and international regulations prescribe; in the second case, prefabricated constructions with low energy performance are widespread in many countries, for which efficiency measures are required. In both circumstances, however, the market is increasingly tempted to the problem, for reasons not only of housing comfort but also purely monetary, also attributable to the greater appreciation that a high energy performance has on the market. In this perspective, the paper first articulates the phases of an investigation protocol to be re-purposed in the definition of the interventions to be implemented for the energy efficiency of buildings. Subsequently, with specific reference to existing prefabricated buildings, it aims to select alternative processes capable of increasing the energy efficiency of vertical opaque structures. The preliminary technical selection of possible actions is followed by the necessary financial analysis. This, by comparing the investment and operating costs with the revenues generated by the savings on consumption, makes it possible to establish the best intervention option.

With the increasing concern of the building environmental impacts, governmental regulation and people own consciousness have shown rising interest in buildings protocols and methods for sustainability certification. Life cycle assessment (LCA) represents a useful tool for designers, companies and building owners in every phase of the construction process, but its daily use encounters several applicability problems. It is indeed hard to take into account crucial parameters regarding the economic, aesthetic and energetic performances of each alternative in a whole sight. The aim of this paper is to exploit LCA techniques to evaluate the environmental impacts of three different types of roof analysed within the building component scale. A green, reverse, and simply waterproofed roofs have been drawn and split into each component’s environmental impacts, whereas a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) tool integrating economic, social and aesthetic parameters. LCA results showed that the reversed roof solution gives out the minimum environmental damage (−69, 46% compared to the common waterproofed roof). The results from this LCA analysis are included in a more holist MCDA approach which is able to consider different objectives (thermal performance, construction cost, aesthetic performance, social utility, environmental impact). This integrated evaluation is conducted according to different scenarios and points of view (eco-social and business-as-usual) and gave scenarios with a synoptic assessment of each maximized performance. Conclusive remarks show that an MCDA qualitative analysis coupled with the quantitative result from LCA appeared to be very helpful in comparing options in the design phase of a building, and a useful communication tool among all the stakeholder of the construction process. This new approach based on the LCA-AHP analysis can help decision makers to find sustainable alternatives among available options and promises a more sustainable product or process.