Innovative Socio-Technical Paradigms for Low-Carbon Transitions in the Built Environment

Dear Colleagues,

Until recently, it was considered that energy infrastructures depending on fossil fuels were irreversible. In addition, since World War II, we have contributed to their continuous and ubiquitous expansion. As a result, urban expansion and built environment development have occurred in disregard of local geographical and climatic conditions and using similar technological solutions, resulting in a significant degree of homogeneity. As a consequence, cities and buildings have become vulnerable and exposed to risks from multiple points of view.

The built environment is responsible for about 40% of the world’s annual CO₂ emissions. In this context, numerous initiatives have been implemented over the past three decades to limit the energy and environmental impact of urban expansions and construction processes. However, the scientific community has only recently advocated a serious reflection on the need to accelerate change, with a proliferation of innovative paradigms for buildings and infrastructures. positive-energy buildings, positive-energy blocks, positive-energy districts and self-organised energy communities are examples of the emerging paradigms that can be considered in the shift from present fossil-fuel-based energy infrastructures to future scenarios where renewables could predominate.

These innovation paradigms are expected to accelerate low-carbon transitions, even though urban landscapes and morphologies—especially in developed countries—are consolidated, obsolete in technological terms and inadequate for present and future challenges. The European Construction Sector Observatory (2018) reports that 75% of buildings were built before 1990. In addition, the rate of the energy renovations of building stock is very small at the European level (~1% year). The inertia with respect to change can compromise the achievement of sustainability objectives.

These emerging paradigms must be investigated more thoroughly from a socio-technical standpoint. In particular, they are required to revolutionise the notions of urban environment and infrastructure by fostering new forms of social cooperation, spatial organisation and business models for transitions. In other words, they are required to provide sustainable and effective bottom-up solutions in the transition to a low-carbon society.

The purpose of this Special Issue hosted by Energies (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/energies) on “Innovative Socio-Technical Paradigms for Low-Carbon Transitions in the Built Environment” is to present studies that explore the technical, social, economic and organisational aspects concerning how to put these new paradigms into practice, from a bottom-up perspective. We invite researchers to submit original research articles and review papers addressing novel approaches to understanding and implementing these new paradigms. We are particularly interested in articles describing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches. Both theoretical and experimental implementation manuscripts are welcome.

Potential topics include but are not limited to:

1. Pathways for low-carbon transitions;
2. Behavioural aspects of low-carbon transitions in the built environment;
3. Coordination of energy modelling approaches at multiple scales;
4. Energy communities, urban and planning strategies;
5. Positive-energy buildings and active buildings;
6. Positive-energy blocks and districts;
7. Renewable energy technologies integration in buildings;
8. From BIM to CIM model and digital twins;
9. Prosumers: policy and regulation;
10. Investment strategies and business models for low-carbon transitions.

Dr. Maurizio Sibilla
Dr. Esra Kurul
Dr. Massimiliano Manfren
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. Energies 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 2600 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.

• positive-energy districts, blocks and active buildings
• energy communities
• socio-technical transition
• city and building energy modelling
• inter- and transdisciplinary methods and tools