Environmental criteria. Consistency between the Minimum Environmental Criteria and the Itaca Protocol Criteria concerning the quality of the intervention site

During the last years, many studies analysed the environmental issue in the buildings sector by providing useful criteria to reduce its impact on urban systems. In this regard, also in Italy the legislator provided an important direction by introducing the optional “Minimum Environmental Criteria (MEC)” that progressively became binding for all public buildings. In particular, the standard opened a new phase in the request and verifi cation of these criteria. In fact, the performance fi eld includes also the environmental part, while previously the design focus was based only on the energy performance of building systems. In this context, the reference to energy-environmental certifi cation systems and their use as a verifi cation method for individual MEC is decisive, although not fully effective. This paper describes the fi rst results of a research aimed at defi ning some technical and administrative steps that are still unclear in this fi rst application phase of the standard. In particular, the goal is to verify the consistency between the binding regulatory provisions (MEC) and the most widespread voluntary environmental certifi cation system in Italy, the ITACA protocol, arriving to defi ne a methodology of integration.