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For some years now the regulations in the sustainability field oriented the practitioners towards an increasing restraint concerning energy necessities, to reconsider the weight in terms of energy and environmental impacts associated with different phases of their life cycle. Among the reliable models to carry out the valuation, the Life Cycle Assessment remains a useful tool that determine the most impactful stages of the life cycle of any process and, thus, its environmental performances. This paper aims to develop and complete previous analyses on sustainability led on the historical heritage of the city of Matera, highlighting all the issues that are still unresolved and the possible solutions to be undertaken. Deep considerations on sustainability and its peculiarities are carried out. A reported analysis of literature and a description of the methods and tools used in the case study are shown. The case study consists in performing the LCA using SimaPro software, based on the assumptions aimed to the energetic retrofit for "Palazzo del Sedile", an historical building located in Matera, Italy. In this section, three methods of assessment are largely described, the choice has been made due to their significance in expressing the environmental effects from three very different perspectives.

The continuously rising cost of energy and its impact on environmental policy are the primary boost for industry to stay global competitive in terms of maximizing productivity and raising operational costs. The prevailing goal in the height of industry 4.0 is to inspect and optimize manufacturing processes. The challenge is to consider thermodynamics as simulation and modelling solution that enables improve energy production and help efforts to shift towards a smart factory. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that using thermodynamic models as Exergy and Life Cycle thinking provides major benefits since it allows evaluation results more reliable and aims to develop a retrofitting approach that enhances the process to avoid system failures efficiently. Any practitioner may pick suitable sensing networks in line with Industry 4.0, in order to develop a monitoring and control infrastructure and improve any manufacturing system, getting it smarter. In this article, an explanatory case study on the production process of an Italian SME will be presented and discussed.

With the constant increase in energy costs and their impacts on environmental policies, optimizing production and reducing operating costs is considered a critical tactic for companies to remain globally competitive. In the height of the Industry 4.0 era, the need to digitize and automate manufacturing processes emerges as another predominant goal. The difficulty lies in understanding how thermodynamic laws can enhance energy efficiency and support for the strategies to approach the transformation into a smart factory. To this end, LCA is the most used tool that helps to measure the consumption of resources throughout the entire life cycle of the process. The Exergetic Analysis (EA) adds information on the efficiency. The goal of this work is to show that hybridizing LCA with EA brings significant advantages: it makes the outcomes of the assessment more objective and it helps to develop retrofitting solution, thus enabling the process to automatically prevent any machine failures. In line with the Industry 4.0, any company would be able to select appropriate sensing infrastructure to enhance its monitoring and management system and redesign it, making it smarter. An illustrative case study on an Italian SME's manufacturing process will be addressed in this paper.

The modelling of complex technological systems serves as the foundation for enhancing process performance, including sustainability features (triple-bottom line). The European Green Deal, proposed in 2019, aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and foster a resource-independent economy. Such a change must be carefully planned. Comprehensive sustainability protocols and guidelines are necessary to describe the standardized methodological procedure, the environmental certification procedures that allow market comparability and identification of the best solutions, the databases, the calculation tools and software, and the benchmark and target with which to make comparison. Policies and regulatory or incentive instruments promote the broad adoption of these approaches and ensure that policies reduce environmental, economic, and social impacts. This paper consists in an overview of sustainability assessment tools' role in energy policy and shortand long-term modeling of more eco-friendly energy-product systems. Additionally, the paper explores these methods' pros and cons in planning, analyzing, and optimizing energy/product systems, also according to the circular economy paradigm. All of these strategies aim to help the decision-maker make more consistent judgments by taking into consideration essential objective, such as end user or stakeholder demands, and minimizing subjective elements. An extensive listing of Sustainability accreditation and communication tools is provided. Sustainability assessment is an evaluation and optimization method that promotes sustainable development in all political planning and decision-making. It examines the social, economic, and environmental effects, finds conflicting goals, and recommends early optimization. Potentially, sustainability assessment should be integrated into the political planning process and depend on domain-specific research and assessments that currently exist or are planned, such as in combination with decision-making. Sustainability assessment is not designed to be an extra analytical tool. A sector-specific environmental or economic study from a strategic environmental analysis or regulatory effect analysis may be crucial to a sustainability assessment.

In recent years the legislation in energetic certification of buildings oriented the construction sector towards an increasing restraint about energy requirements, associated with the different phases of life cycle of a building. For this purpose, the Life Cycle Assessment, internationally recognized for reliable valuation of energy and environmental performances, is still a useful tool to determine any impact in the life cycle of process. The first part of this paper focuses on LCA and its application to historical heritage. A reported analysis of literature and a description of the software and methods used in the case study are shown. In the second part of the paper, LCA analysis was performed using the software SimaPro by PRé Consultants v.8.5.2.0, based on the hypothesis aimed to the energy efficiency of "Palazzo del Sedile", an historical building located in Matera, a southern city of Italy. The data related to this building have been derived from previous energetic analyses carried out on the same building and from statistical data and other affine studies in the literature. The Cumulative Energy Demand, the Eco-indicator 99 and the EDIP2003 methods have been implemented. Finally, the differences between the outcomes of these assessment methods have been discussed.

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