Comparison among environmental certification systems. Relationships between systems and project. Case study: the recovery of a RSA

Environmental certification systems are tools for the evaluation of the sustainability of the buildings that are independent one from each other, different for contents, and for the applied methodology. International investors have asked for standardized certification systems to operate in the market with regard to both the phases of investment and management of the real estate. This created the need to compare the different environmental certification systems. The existence of different tools confuses the planner, whom wonders which environmental certification system is the most suitable for constructing new buildings or for the recovery of an existing building. The tendency is that of preferring a system to another based on its level of national adoption or based on individual competences and preferences. If a professional has already applied a system once, he is more driven to apply the same system for his future projects, as he is familiar with the themes and the evaluating methodology. Different researchers have compared these systems and in front of the different applied methodologies, it has emerged the need to use a certification system costumed for every plan proposal. The strong relationship between the environmental certification system and the development of a sustainable recovery project, led to the necessity to perform a preliminary analysis of the planning activity in order to pin-point the best fitting tool. This paper applies and compares three different environmental certification systems such as LEED, BREEAM and Protocol ITACA, to the project of recovery of the Sanitary Residence for Elderly (RSA) - Institute Configliachi (Padua). The historic building of the Configliachi Institute for blind people, find itself in a state of extreme decay and abandonment. It is located in the Arcella district, in the north of Padua, a strategic position with respect to the services in the area, to the main public transport networks (tram, railway, bus and motorway) and to the principal road knots of access to the city. This fact, with regard to the current strategy for the recovery and valorisation of the existing building capital, increases the interest for its reuse. The analysis carried out in this paper, focuses on the influences in choosing the project’s certification system, it highlights the relationship between the existing building, the certification system and the project and it outlines new specific professional skills. .