Energy efficiency in buildings: What drives the investments? The case of Lombardy Region

•The research focuses on a buildings energy efficiency program in Lombardy Region.•Energy Retrofit in public buildings and Zero Emissions Buildings were analyzed.•The methodology of data processing was described.•The lesson learned from the two calls was presented.•Policy implications of similar interventions were outlined.

In recent years, following an agreement with the Italian Ministry of the Environment, Lombardy Region has promoted numerous initiatives for energy efficiency and use of renewable energy sources. These initiatives covered a large spectrum of technologies and practices. Energy efficiency in buildings has a fundamental role in the regional energy balance and pollutants emissions, including CO2eq. Local energy efficiency programs aimed at supporting these interventions have to be designed, managed and monitored to clearly identify the real energy, economic and environmental benefits derived by them. In this paper, the monitoring and analysis process performed within the topic of energy efficiency in the building sector is presented, referring to the program named Design and realization of interventions for energy retrofit in public buildings and realization of zero emissions buildings (i.e. buildings that have zero emissions of greenhouse gases related to their operation). In recent years, several research studies were carried out in the same field related to achieving cost-optimality. For this reason, the presented economic analysis was enhanced also taking into account the cost optimality methodology and the nearly zero energy building standards. The main results of the research are described in the present paper by energy, environmental and economic point of view.