Net-Zero Housing Policy for Sustainable Cities

Dear Colleagues,

The residential sector is responsible for nearly 30% of final energy consumption and corresponding carbon emissions. While numerous local authorities/municipalities have declared carbon emergency and aspire to achieve carbon neutrality, in many cases by 2030, these intentions translate into policies very slowly, more like business as usual rather than business under emergency response. Houses are still being constructed to regulations that do not require them to be net-zero. Embodied emissions are not a mandatory consideration in the housing design, yet research has shown these emissions can cause an overshoot of net-zero from three to four decades.

The aim of this Special Issue is to investigate net-zero housing solutions that can be translated into policies quickly, where combined embodied and operational emissions are design determinants for housing projects.

This Special Issue will consider articles that discuss barriers and enablers for net-zero housing policies, and the effect of these interventions on the sustainability of cities.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

Zero-carbon design and retrofit of buildings; embodied and operational emissions; life cycle analysis; bio-sourced materials; renewable energy solutions; climate emergency; policy development support; advanced control of building heating and cooling and resultant savings; nature-inspired design; aligning interests of housing developers and end users; and alternative economics for sustainability paradigm.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Ljubomir Jankovic
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• zero-carbon design
• zero-carbon retrofit
• embodied emissions
• operational emissions
• life cycle analysis
• bio-sourced materials
• renewable energy
• climate emergency
• policy development
• nature-inspired design
• developer‒user alignment
• alternative economics