Identification of European buildings most needing seismic and energy retrofit with a focus on the Italian context

The renovation of the existing built environment, making it energy-efficient and less carbon intensive, is an EU key-priority towards the green transition by 2050. Furthermore, the existing building stock in the EU seismic prone regions also suffers from seismic vulnerability leading to significant social and economic impacts due to the extensive damage or collapse of buildings. Hence, the effort to consider an integrated approach for making existing buildings simultaneously safe and sustainable is of paramount importance. This report addresses a simplified analysis for the prioritisation of the EU existing buildings needing combined seismic and energy retrofit as crucial basis to foster their wide modernisation by facilitating the selection of suitable integrated renovation strategies. In fact, the huge number and diversity of the EU building typologies typically makes the possibility of a rapid renovation for a large fraction of existing buildings complex. An overview of the main characteristics of the EU residential building stock in terms of age, building type, and size is carried out. These investigations are combined with the mapping of the EU in seismic hazard zones and climatic zones to define a framework identifying the building typologies most requiring seismic strengthening and reduction of energy inefficiency. A focus on the prioritisation of the Italian existing residential building stock is also carried out, due to its huge variability in terms of construction technologies.