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The interdependence and feedback between climate impacts mitigation and adaptation to the inevitable changes in climate are the key challenges for the built environment in the coming decades. These challenges are more pronounced in the interface between science and society, in which scientific knowledge and evidence are transformed into policy actions. This editorial looks at current and growing evidence base on the impacts of climate change and the means to adapt buildings, as well as the interface between policies and evidence base while summarising the contributions to this special issue.

Recent climate change projections estimate that the average summertime temperature in the southern part of Great Britain may increase by up to 5.4°C by the end of the century. The general consensus is that projected increases in temperature will render British dwellings vulnerable to summer overheating and by the middle of this century it may become difficult to maintain a comfortable indoor environment, if adaptation measures are not well integrated in the design and operation of new dwellings, which are likely to remain in use beyond the 2050s. The challenge is to reduce overheating risks by integrating building and user adaptation measures, to avoid energy intensive mechanical cooling. Developing guidelines and updating building regulations for adaptation, therefore, requires an understanding of the baseline scenario; i.e. the performance of existing buildings in future climates.

This paper aims to investigate the performance of new-build multi-occupancy British dwellings for human thermal comfort in the present-day and projected future climates in four regional cities: Birmingham, Edinburgh, London and Manchester. Evaluations are carried out by a series of dynamic thermal simulations using widely adopted threshold temperature for overheating, as well as adaptive thermal comfort standards. This study thus offers a unique perspective on regional variations of performance and provides a clearer snapshot because of the use of more appropriate adaptive comfort standards in the evaluations. Finally, the paper sheds light on possible personal and building adaptation measures to alleviate overheating risks.

Renewable energy (RE) is an important component to the complex portfolio of technologies that have the potential to reduce CO₂ emissions and to enhance the security of energy supplies. Despite RE's potential to reduce CO₂ emissions, the expenditure on renewable energy research, development, and demonstration (RERD&D) as a percentage of total government energy research, development, and demonstration (ERD&D) investment remains low in developed countries. The declining ERD&D expenditure prompted this research to explore the relationship between CO₂ emissions per capita and RERD&D as opposed to ERD&D.

An econometric analysis of annual CO₂ emissions per capita during the period 1990‐2004 for the 15 pre‐2004 European Union (EU15) countries was carried out. It was hypothesized that the impact of RERD&D expenditure on the reduction of CO₂ emissions would be higher than that of ERD&D expenditure, primarily due to several RE technologies being close to carbon neutral. Country‐level gross domestic product per capita and an index of the ratio between industry consumption and industrial production were introduced in the analysis as proxies to control for activities that generate CO₂ emissions. A number of panel data econometric models that are able to take into account both country‐ and time‐specific unobserved effects were explored.

It was found that random effect models were more appropriate to examine the study hypothesis. The results suggest that expenditure on RERD&D is statistically significant and negatively associated with CO₂ emissions per capita in all models, whereas expenditure on ERD&D is statistically insignificant (ceteris paribus).

The findings of this paper provide useful insight into the effectiveness of RERD&D investment in reducing CO₂ emissions and are of value in the development of policies for targeted research, development, and demonstration investment to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Using a quantitative research method, health-care workers’ (HWs) well-being was taken as the dependent variable while the two independent variables were physical quality and service environment. This study aims to focus on the well-being of HWs in their physical environment.

This study used a hybrid method that is a combination of literature review and questionnaire survey. This study used quantitative research design which is a systematic study of phenomenon by collecting quantifiable data and performing statistical, mathematical or computational techniques. This study is conducted among HWs, with doctors and nurses at four Chinese government hospitals in the southern city of Changzhou (near Shanghai) as participants.

A total of 222 responses were obtained from a random sample of HWs from four hospitals in Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province. Three-fifth of the participants (n = 133, 60%) are satisfied with hospital equipment and half (n = 111.50%) of them are satisfied with the modern technology in place. About one-third (n = 67, 30%) are satisfied with ventilation and only one-fifth (n = 44, 20%) are satisfied with hygiene. Most HWs think it was necessary to provide tests for frontline workers.

In the wake of COVID-19 in 2020, HWs are working long hours every day facing high risk of infection and stress. This research investigates the satisfaction level and the difficulties experienced by HWs based on the current physical environment setting during COVID-19 pandemic.

The paper aims to report on an integrated techno-economic framework for the performance analysis of energy production based on the renewable energy resources (RERs). Whilst the majority of existing studies have focussed on technical aspects of RER modelling, the proposed framework incorporates financial assessment into the process of appraising the alternatives of hydropower, wind energy and solar energy infrastructures. An approach to the optimal choice of RER deployment for a specific developing region is formulated and applied to Ghana.

A model comprising technical and economic parameters was developed for analysing the investment rankings of different RERs and comparing them to that of conventional energy sources such as the natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) electric plant. The analysis also included the carbon cost and power generation capacity. The total life cycle costing and levelised cost of energy generated from each resource were modelled for three corporate ownership structures: a public utility that is not tax-liable (no-tax case); organisational power generation for internal use, ultimately concerned with its after-tax costs (after-tax case); and an independent power producer for the market, with before-tax revenues covering all costs (before-tax case).

Using the empirical data from Ghana together with the proposed framework, it is shown that when carbon incentives are provided, the hydroelectric and wind conversion infrastructures can effectively compete with the conventional NGCC in this country, whilst with no carbon credit, NGCC still appears to be the most viable option.

Policy-related recommendations on carbon incentives and preferential power purchase prices, which are critical for widespread RER deployment, can be directly derived from this research.

The study represents a comprehensive decision-making tool that can be used in regulatory and investment analysis on the expansion of RER systems in the developing countries.