Ready for 2020: The ‘nearly zero-energy buildings’

Buildings currently account for 30-40% of all energy consumption worldwide. If we want to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions we need to relook at building design.
The new demanding European Directive on energy performance of buildings requires all new buildings to be ‘nearly zero-energy’ by 2020 and the ‘2-litre houses’ located in Ozzano dell’Emilia near Bologna, Italy, are a working demonstration of how to achieve this.
What makes the project at Ozzano even more special is the fact that in combination with the energy saving criteria, it also takes into account the environmental footprint of all of the materials and applications used as a fundamental principle of the design. This is sustainable building design in practice.