The paper illustrates the phases and results of an evaluation model applied to abandoned industrial areas affected by critical environmental pollution. The main aim is to provide the economic evaluation of the impacts of critical environmental pollution on the market value of the areas, in anticipation of their future requalification and refunctionalization. Firstly, two mass appraisal models are applied: a regressive model in order to isolate the effects of real estate valorization generated by the requalification interventions of the abandoned steel mill areas of Bagnoli in Naples (Italy); an autoregressive model in relation to the chronology of the interventions and the real estate market dynamics, in order to predict values and costs of the building products to be realized on the areas. Subsequently, using the Ellwood model, the irreversible damage suffered by the areas in question due to the effect of critical environmental pollution is estimated. This irreversible damage corresponds to a “stigma” effect, or a loss to property value due to the presence of a risk perception-driven market resistance: for the abandoned steel mill areas of Bagnoli the reduction in the market value is equal to 28.63% approximately. The state of contamination of the areas is also described, estimating the related environmental remediation costs as a “deduction” to be applied to the “capital value” of the areas.

The building sector is affected by a significant confusion between the concepts of sustainability and energetic efficiency: indeed, both the paradigms have the aim of safeguarding the planet, but the strategies to enact them certainly follow two different paths, often in contrast between them. The design of building envelopes has definite performance requirements, according to the current framework, but in any case the technological choices to fulfil them are not univocally determined. As an example, the objective of obtaining building envelopes with low transmittance can be reached by a huge number of typologies of solutions and materials, but of course the possible evaluations in terms of sustainability may in some cases show results that overturn the energetic assessment. Also, considering the strict relation that exists between durability (also in terms of resilience) and sustainability, it can be concluded that the most correct tendency for materials and products can be – more in general – defined as environmental efficiency, the so-called eco-compatibility. Taking moves from the scientific literature on products and materials, both from the point of view of sustainability, and from that of durability and resilience, this work proposes a number of comparative evaluations that analyse the main systems and components of the external envelopes: built-up roofs and roof systems, opaque and transparent walls, ground floor slabs, doors and windows. LCA analyses, durability assessments and considerations on resilience carried out on the abovementioned systems and components provide very interesting results to guide designers towards more conscious choices, aimed to integrate the different (and sometimes contradictory) aspects that allow to realize energetically and environmentally efficient buildings.

The performance decay of a building component is influenced by a huge variety of parameters, interacting between them and determining different results in terms of service life and performance over time. For this reason, evaluating and modeling the performance of a component requires the comprehension of the way and the measure the single factors affect it, and turning this into an analytical model is a very complex operation. Moreover, components of existing buildings are subjected to an additional incognita: the characteristics and the durability of the materials, which is hardly a certain information, and can vary between similar buildings, affecting the accuracy of the evaluation. This study, conducted according to the guidelines of ISO 15686:7 code, investigates on a common solution for interventions on existing buildings, the ETICS, surveying their current performance degree through thermographic camera tests. The aim is to appreciate the difference in the performance decay between different façades of the same buildinga homogeneity that allows to estimate this parameter alone-in order to reach an analytical expression of the variation of performance decay according to the difference in the exposure. The sample is constituted by buildings of large dimensions and well-known original projects and details of successive interventions, located in the city of Naples. The data obtained with in-field measurements were subjected to statistical analysis, to allow the quantitative determination of the impact of this parameter.

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