Sustainability rating protocol for condominium buildings

One of the main causes of the environmental crisis is the building sector, which is why Europe has stipulated that new buildings and those undergoing renovation must be zero-emission, also launching the well-known European Green Deal and the recent package of actions "Fit for 55". To this end, there is a growing interest in building sustainability assessment tools, since they act as a support and stimulus for the sustainable transition and assure the market a concrete and clear quantification of the global quality of the housing. For such a reason, this work presents a sustainability assessment protocol for Italian condominium buildings. The protocol's intent is not only to evaluate aspects related to the building's construction and technical systems' engineering quality, but also to underline the potential to optimise services and management practices of the condominium. A study of the state of the art of assessment tools was carried out, followed by an in-depth analysis of existing protocols at international and national level. The structure of the proposed protocol is then described and, finally, the results of its application on 33 real condominium buildings are reported. The protocol testing confirmed a streamlined evaluation procedure, capable of monitoring the building's performance and services and identifying areas for improvement, enhancing its sustainability aspects. The results show that new buildings obtain higher scores than older ones, and in general the evaluation area with the highest score is the economic one, while the environmental and social aspects show wide margins for improvement.