EFL (European Federation for Living), the European network of housing associations, companies and experts working to create more affordable, sustainable housing, organizes a 3-day meeting program between Milano and Bolzano with the collaboration of Agenzia CasaClima KlimaHaus. The meeting will include 2 site visits (Bosco Verticale in Milan and CasaNova district in Bolzano).

Wolfram Sparber, Head of the Institute for Renewable Energy of Eurac Research, takes part at the visits and is going to held a presentation about sustainable buildings, energy and decarbonization

Sparber will first of all present the whole Institute, our research topics, our test facilities at the NOI Techpark, and the collaboration with companies and industrial partners for the development of sustainable solutions and technologies.

A second part of the talk will be dedicated to the most important EU-funded research projects on sustainable buildings we are involved in: The H2020 MEeroE project, which aims to develop a European-distributed open innovation system for developing envelope solutions for Nearly-Zero Energy Buildings, and the JUSTNature project, which promotes nature-based solutions to ensure a just transition to low carbon cities. Considering the right of all citizens to ecological space, the project will co-design new systems which conserve natural ecosystem values and functions and will ultimately provide numerous benefits to people.

Sparber is going to talk also about the very actual topic of how to reduce European dependency from fossil fuels which contribute to the actual energy and climate crisis, a problem that can be solved by low carbon heating and the replacement of steal and cement by other low carbon (biomass based) construction materials.

A last but very important topic is dedicated to the role of the buildings in all this situation: they actually contribute in many ways to the consumption of fossil fuels, but they could also be a key to solve the energy & emission crisis by becoming more efficient and sustainable. Eurac Research has always been involved in projects for the energy renovation of buildings of various types, like for example the project Sinfonia, 4RinEU, EnergyMatching, Stardust, or BuildHeat.

A selection of buildings that have received an energy retrofit in recent years with the support of Eurac Research can be consulted at this [link](https://www.eurac.edu/en/institutes-centers/institute-for-renewable-energy/case-studies/renovation-of-buildings-energy-retrofit)

The full program of the event is available here