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For municipalities that have joined the Covenant of Mayors promoted by the European Commission, the Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP) represents a strategic tool for achieving the greenhouse gas reductions required by 2020. So far as the energy retrofit actions in their residential building stock are concerned, which in the small-to-medium municipalities are responsible for more than 60% of CO 2 emissions, the scenarios for intervening are normally decided on the basis of an economic (cost/performance) analysis. This type of analysis, however, does not take into account important aspects for small and medium-sized communities such as social aspects, environmental impacts, local economic development and employment. A more comprehensive and effective tool to support the choices of public administrators is the multi-criteria analysis. This study proposes a methodology that integrates multi-criteria analysis in order to support Public Administration/Local Authorities in programming Sustainable Energy Action Plans with a more targeted approach to sustainability. The methodology, based on the ELECTRE III method, was applied to a medium-size municipality in the Lombardy region of Italy. The results obtained with this approach are discussed in this paper. OPEN ACCESSEnergies 2013, 6 4309

The energy certification of buildings implemented in the Member States of the EU with the transposition of Energy Performance Building Directive (EPBD) has stimulated the market for high-performance buildings, normally classified as A and A+. Such energy performance, however, is evaluated based on a theoretical calculation model that defines standard operating conditions. In Italy, as in most EU countries, performance assessments are not carried out under real operating conditions. The Lombardy region is a leading player in the field of social housing. In order to demonstrate transparency to the customer, the BEST Department of Politecnico di Milano was instructed to conduct a comparative evaluation between the actual and normalised energy performance of a high performance building located in Milan. The study showed that the real performance, calculated using data from three selected flats, was consistent with that calculated during the certification procedure. However real energy consumption is different even in identical flats, due to different behaviours of the user

Owners and municipalities face the choice to renovate or rebuild buildings in order to improve energy efficiency and sustainability. The process of upgrading the existing building stock can be supported by land management tools, i.e., municipal energy plans (MEP) or sustainable building codes (BC), that municipalities use to plan, check and monitor actions taken. Many local and regional authorities are involved in the Covenant of Mayors supported by the European Union (EU): the sustainable energy action plan (