Net-Zero Climate Emissions Districts: Potentials and Constraints for Social Housing in Milan

Jacopo Famiglietti, Marcello Aprile (), Giulia Spirito and Mario Motta
Additional contact information
Jacopo Famiglietti: Department of Energy, Politecnico di Milano, 20156 Milan, Italy
Marcello Aprile: Department of Energy, Politecnico di Milano, 20156 Milan, Italy
Giulia Spirito: Department of Energy, Politecnico di Milano, 20156 Milan, Italy
Mario Motta: Department of Energy, Politecnico di Milano, 20156 Milan, Italy

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 3, 1-31

Abstract: Net-zero climate districts are gaining wide attention at the European and international levels. Urban regeneration competitions have been launched recently to stimulate development; nevertheless, the literature does not yet provide a shared scope definition (i.e., product system). Using the process-based life cycle assessment method, the authors evaluate the climate profile of a new district in Milan (14 buildings with 36,000 m 2 of gross surface area in total) aiming to become the first net-zero social housing project in Italy. The authors show in the results section how climate neutrality is achieved on the part of the real estate operator by varying the scope. The most conservative scenario (including all the emission sources considered in the analysis) indicates that the net-zero climate target is reached only by purchasing voluntary carbon credits. The authors also highlight: (i) a district composed of nearly-zero energy buildings is far from the definition of a net-zero climate emissions district; (ii) a net-zero climate emissions district may not be a positive energy district and vice-versa; and (iii) constraints linked with the lack of space in a densely populated city due to insufficient area to install renewables on site.

Keywords: net-zero emission districts; life cycle assessment; climate neutral; MILP; greenhouse gas emissions; level(s) framework (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/3/1504/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/3/1504/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:3:p:1504-:d:1056315

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().