Critical analysis on future developments for the Smart Readiness Indicator focusing on the functionality "Respond to users' needs"

Nowadays, the use of building automation and control systems is currently growing faster through the European continent, aiming to improve the energy efficiency, the building performance monitoring and to better respond to occupants' needs. In 2018, the revised Energy Performance of Building Directive EU 2018/844 (EPBD) has introduced and updated a set of concepts with the aim of reach the total decarbonization of the European building stock, together with the reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions within the 2030, respecting a minimum thresholds fixed at $-40\,$\% of the levels registered in 1990. For the first time, an indicator for the evaluation of the smart readiness of buildings has been introduced at the EU level, for which the adoption is still voluntary from the European member states. This index, the so-called Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI), gives the possibility to better understand how and to what extent the considered buildings in the entire building stock are ready to adopt new smart solutions to improve their performance, bringing them closer to the 2050 goal of nearly Zero Energy constructions. Moreover, always based on the EPBD requirements, the SRI should be able to cope with the occupants' needs, enhancing the communication, the convenience but especially the comfort, health and well-being levels. This thesis work is focused on the possible development pathways of the Smart Readiness Indicator, looking at the aspects of the SRI that are mostly related with the users' needs and suggesting improvements in the index's methodological framework proposed by the European Commission. A careful in-depth study concerning the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) is carried out to provide modification in the SRI methodology, especially for the part related to the key capability "Respond to User's needs". The main focus concerns the way in which scores are evaluated and then assigned to each domain's level of functionality, and afterwards, the derivation of new weighting factors at the domains and impact criteria levels, used to compute the final SRI score. The revised scoring methodology is based on the calculation of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to assess comfort and health aspects, giving a score based on the performance level reached. Furthermore, the derivation of new weighting factors is based on the use of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a Multi-criteria Decision Making method (MCDM), able to evaluate priorities over a set of proposed alternatives and criteria. The intent of the entire work is to propose improvements in the actual methodology for the Smart Readiness Indicator to enhance the contribution and the importance of aspects related to the comfort, health and well-being in interior spaces.