PROBONO - The Integrator-centric approach for realising innovative energy efficient buildings in connected sustainable green neighbourhoods

The PROBONO vision is a people-focused European construction industry working in harmony with the broader community of stakeholders including public authorities and citizens to deliver scalable, sustainable, and viable energy positive and zero-carbon Green Buildings and Neighbourhoods (GBN). PROBONO will contribute to this vision by providing five GBN Transition Acceleration Enablers (Figure 1), deployed in six high impact and people-focused real-life large-scale Living Labs (LLs) (leveraging existing projects and/or approved renovation plans). LL outputs will be feeding into a transferability and innovation replication framework that will enhance the transition capabilities of local communities.

PROBONO Enablers will help GBNs to reach zero emission and energy positive levels by 2030 and to have positive ratings for efficiency KPIs associated with the innovations proposed. The potential of GBNs will be further elaborated in the project by specific consideration of building typologies in the context of the non-residential sector.

PROBONO will provide strong exemplars on how GBN technological and social innovations can be applied, with a systems-based envision of the buildings infrastructure and a renewed focus on people and sustainability, fully exploiting digitalisation, and smart technologies for the benefit of society29. PROBONO will create evidence-based policy recommendations, standardisation actions and robust adoption and commercialisation strategies backed by a capacity building programme and a European Alliance of GBN Innovation Clusters. Special attention will be given to GBNs’ alignment with city and urban masterplans and policy frameworks UN SDGs, UN PRI; EP4; TCFD, CDSB30 and emerging standardisation. Standardisation requirements for accelerating the implementation of innovative GBN technology will be tracked throughout the project and appropriate actions will be instigated. Standardisation of GBN development processes will be adopted in the LLs, particularly associated with consumer and tendering legislation and standards.