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Sustainability assessment and rating systems are intended to foster more sustainable design, construction, operation, maintenance and disassembly/deconstruction promoting and making possible a better integration of environment, societal, and cost concerns with other traditional decision criteria. The use of improved and building technologies can contribute considerably to better environmental cycle and then to the sustainability of the constructions. It is widely recognised in the of Building Sustainability Assessment that Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a much preferable method for evaluating the environmental pressure caused by materials, Building assemblies and the whole life-cycle of a building. Nevertheless, LCA tools are not extensively used in building design and most of building sustainability assessment and systems are not comprehensive or consistently LCA-based. Reasons for this failure above all related to the huge variety and amount of material flows and processes of building’s Lifecycle and to the complexity of the stages of a LCA. This paper will present the difficulties and possible solutions to integrate more accurate environmental methods in rating systems. In this context, the paper will also present the work that is being carried out in the development of the Portuguese Building Sustainability Assessment system (SBTool PT)

Abstract This work assesses the impacts of aggressive driving behavior on pollutants emissions and energy consumption at a city level. Furthermore, it performs an economic analysis considering the potential avoided emissions and fuel savings and discusses potential policy measures to address this topic. The results showed that aggressive driving significantly impacts energy consumption and emissions, with energy consumption increasing by more than ∼200% and emissions by 330% for aggressive driving compared to non-aggressive driving (in MJ/km and in g/km, respectively). This increment was found to be even higher for diesel vehicles than for gasoline vehicles. On the contrary, gasoline vehicles showed higher percentages of increase for most emissions (CO, NOx and NO). Results also revealed that aggressive driving impacts are higher for local streets when examining the city level. Moreover, the economic analysis showed that significant cost reductions may be achieved by avoiding aggressive driving, reaching up to 52.5 k€ on a daily basis. In conclusion, this study is of particular relevance to policy makers and urban planners, enabling to obtain a comprehensive overview of the impacts of aggressive driving behaviors at a city level and providing new insights to perform further developments and to assess the feasibility of the implementation of policy measures.

In this study, air concentrations of BaP in two different seasons (winter 2015 and summer 2016) and BaP levels in ground vegetation from Tarragona County were used as control simulations performed with the WRF-CHIMERE air quality modelling system, in order to reproduce the incidence of that hazardous chemical in air and soils. The CTM was validated for the present climatology, showing a good ability to represent air and soil concentrations of BaP over the target domain (petrochemical, chemical, urban and background sites), particularly in the winter. Then, the variation of the BaP concentrations in air and soils were simulated for the time series 1996-2015 and for the climate change scenario RCP8.5 (2031-2050). While an increase is projected for the levels in air, particularly in chemical and remote sites where the variation can go up to 10%, in terms of soil deposition the findings are the opposite, with an evident decrease in soil BaP concentrations, particularly for background sites. Finally, a potential health effect of BaP for the local population (lung cancer) was assessed. Although according to the projections the EU threshold for BaP atmospheric incidence (1 ng m-3) will not be reached by 2050, there will be an increase in the life-time risk of lung cancer, particularly in the most populated areas within the simulation domain.

Abstract Portugal’s performance concerning the Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) strategy, with particular focus on perspectives for the Northern Region based on the current status of integrated municipal waste management systems in that region, was evaluated. Legal documents, official reports and the market were analyzed. The 2015 national installed capacity of waste treatment technologies, from which the high calorific value fraction (HCVF) for RDF production is obtained, is not far from what was predicted for 2013. However, only around 11% of the HCVF had such destiny and the amount of effectively produced RDF was only 30% of the material sent to RDF production (around 30 kt). In Northern Portugal, no RDF production plant was in operation in 2015; the amount of HCVF was estimated to range from 105 to 204 kt for 2015 and around 2.4 times more is expected in 2020. The strategy laydown for RDF failed so far, and thus, low diversion of waste from landfills is observed, mostly due to low landfill taxes and low HCVF quality, resulting in RDF being non-competitive with the imported higher quality product from countries with very high landfilling fees. Moreover, co-incineration and dedicated recovery solutions are scarce. In the Northern region, the HCVF may be treated in the existing municipal waste incinerator or the RDF might be recovered in new dedicated plants, receiving also non-hazardous waste fractions from other origin. Overall, to ensure a sustainable municipal waste management, the intensification of the reuse, preparation for reuse and recycling of waste components from source segregated collection must be significantly promoted.

The energy efficiency of buildings is nowadays one of the main concerns of the construction market. But, Indoor Environmental Quality of Buildings (IEQ) should not be disregarded. To achieve an adequate quality of buildings it is necessary to consider a set of aspects that are interconnected and influence each other, not always in a favourable way. The selection of the most suitable construction solution and materials for the building elements must consider its contribution for the IEQ (thermal and acoustic comfort, daylight conditions and the indoor air quality) inside the buildings, its energy efficiency and its environmental impact (considering the embodied energy, for example), but also the weight of the solution and its effect on the structural project of the building. The solutions adopted in buildings, usually, only optimize no more than one of the necessary comfort requirements. In many cases, the best solutions to accomplish different comfort requirements are not compatible, especially in what concerns natural ventilation and lighting strategies and the acoustic and thermal performance. So, it is necessary to have an integrated approach to ensure the best overall behaviour taking into account all of the, sometimes incompatible, comfort and energy efficiency requirements. In this work the use of a multi-criteria analysis, to balance all these aspects on the design phase, in order to assist the designer in the selection of construction solutions and materials will be presented. The selection of the most adequate construction solutions will increase the buildings IEQ, energy performance and also its environmental impact.

This research work aims to study if it is possible to design a sustainable building residential building that has a life-cycle cost lower than a conventional one. For this purpose, a multifamily cooperative housing building block, that is the Portuguese pilot-project of the EU Project “SHE: Sustainable Housing in Europe”, has been chosen. This work will compare the sustainability of the case study with the conventional design approach in Portugal, i.e. when the conventional technologies and building materials are used. For this outcome, the SBToolPT-H (Portuguese building sustainability assessment and rating methodology) will be used. This paper will highlight the usefulness of a building sustainability assessment tool in supporting and recognising the sustainable building design. It will also show that even with little investment in the capital costs it is possible to achieve high performance residential buildings.

Abstract This paper aims to compare the energy efficiency and CO 2 emissions of four different range extender engine solutions deployed in the same baseline series hybrid vehicle, under a combination of driving scenarios aiming to be representative of typical driving instead of standard cycles. Baseline vehicle is roughly based on Chevy VOLT/Opel Ampera. The baseline internal combustion engine is replaced by an over-expanded cycle engine, Wankel engine and microturbine, with respective generator and exhaust after treatment. Weight savings are compensated by introducing additional battery modules, maintaining the original baseline vehicle curb weight. Vehicle Specific Power (VSP) is used for driving cycle analysis and as explanatory variable for energy consumption and CO 2 emissions variations. Upstream fuel energy and CO 2 emissions of gasoline/diesel and electricity are regarded. Average VSP correlates with variation of the percentage of engine off, potential regenerative braking energy and eco/boost operation. Positive wheel energy correlates with energy consumption and electric autonomy adequately. The vehicle with the lightest engine (Wankel) and largest battery shows to be the most efficient in urban driving (when the engine does not have to work), while the vehicle with the highest efficient engine (over-expanded) and with dual eco/boost setting is the most efficient during the charge sustaining operation and in annual combined use.

FCT (Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia – Portugal) and COMPETE (Programa Operacional de Fatores de Competitividade - Portugal)