a b s t r a c tIn times of great transition of the European construction sector to energy efficient and nearly zero energy buildings (nZEB), a market observation containing qualitative and quantitative indications should help to fill out some of the current gaps concerning the EU 2020 carbon targets. Next to the economic challenges, there are equally important factors that hinder renovating the existing residential building stock and adding newly constructed high performance buildings. Under these circumstances this paper summarises the findings of a cross-comparative study of the societal and technical barriers of nZEB implementation in 7 Southern European countries. The study analyses the present situation and provides an overview on future prospects for nZEB in Southern Europe. The result presents an overview of challenges and provides recommendations based on available empirical evidence to further lower those barriers in the European construction sector. The paper finds that the most Southern European countries are poorly prepared for nZEB implementation and especially to the challenge/opportunity of retrofitting existing buildings. Creating a common approach to further develop nZEB targets, concepts and definitions in synergy with the climatic, societal and technical state of progress in Southern Europe is essential. The paper provides recommendations for actions to shift the identified gaps into opportunities for future development of climate adaptive high performance buildings.

Agricultural sector should be considered, as one of the main economic development sectors in the entire world, while at the same time is responsible for important pollution. The life cycle assessment (LCA) procedure was involved in the agricultural strategic development planning for Balkan region, as a useful tool to identify and quantify potential environmental impacts from the production of apple juice, wine and pepper pesto in three selected sites in Greece, North Macedonia and Bulgaria. These three products were chosen, as are considered as the main economic activities at the areas. The LCA approach covered the entire production line of each product. Based on the LCA results, which comprise the size of six impact categories characterization factors, suggestions were made in order to minimize the footprint of the apples orchard, vineyard and pepper cultivation plots as well as of the production processes of apple juice, wine and pepper pesto as final distribution products. The results indicate that changes in the cultivation and the production must be considered in order to optimize the environmental footprint. Moreover, the whole approach could be useful for agricultural stakeholders, policy makers and producers, in order to improve their products ecological performance, reduce food loss and food waste and increase the productivity of the agricultural sector, while at the same time can improve the three pillars of sustainability through strategy development.

The present work aims to establish the thermal characteristics and actual thermal behaviour of typical residential houses in Cyprus under real weather conditions. For this purpose, a wireless web-based monitoring system has been deployed covering 44 different houses, geographically spread all over Cyprus. Construction materials varied amongst each house, resulting in a theoretical U-value range of 0.467-1.389 W/m 2 K. Calibrated temperature sensors were installed and measurements were conducted at 30-min intervals for each individual house. The indoor air temperature of each house, the outside (ambient) air temperature, and the internal and external wall surface temperatures have continuously been monitored for a period of 15 months. Processing the above-mentioned data has led to the establishment of the mean indoor air temperature of the typical Cypriot residence and calculation of the U-value for each individual wall, facing north, south, east and west, including the roof, comprising the building envelope. Variations of the calculated U-value of up to 25% for each wall orientation were observed, even though construction materials of each wall remain the same. Furthermore, deviations of up to 30% from the theoretical U-value calculation were also observed.