All information on the selected criteria can be found in the main deliverable of this action, downloadable from this section.

A brief summary of the selected criteria is also available in unit 8 of the online training developed by LIFE-myBUILDINGisGREEN, accessible via this link.

Once the selection criteria have been identified, an evaluation matrix is created with a list of potential educational buildings for each region in which the project will intervene: province of Badajoz, region of Central Alentejo and municipality of Porto. The project partners, especially the Provincial Council of Badajoz (DIPBA), the Intermunicipal Community of Central Alentejo (CIMAC) and the Municipality of Porto (MP), carry out intensive fieldwork to collect the missing data of the listed buildings and an assessment is made according to the scores marked by the selected criteria. Once the highest scoring schools for each region have been obtained, the decision is communicated to regional and local governments and the educational community of the selected schools for approval.

The final selection of the three pilot buildings took place in February 2019, as scheduled in the project report.

After having selected all the pilot buildings, the project members worked to obtain the relevant permits from the relevant authorities. In some cases, obtaining these permits took some time, although this was not a problem for continuing with the rest of the actions, as the non-formal authorisation from the competent persons was already in place. Thus, the drafting of the construction projects (Action A2) took place on the dates indicated in the project proposal.

After collecting and analysing all this information, the three construction projects are drawn up in close collaboration with the educational community of the three pilot buildings to meet the needs identified. Key players in the intervention regions are also consulted on the technical aspects of the project (e.g. architecture faculties, municipal technicians, etc.). In this way, the different technical projects are obtained and the technical specifications for the execution and implementation of the works are drawn up.

Once the projects have been drawn up, a document is prepared that includes extended information on the database and work matrix prepared at the beginning of the action and on the solutions and prototypes designed for LIFE-myBUILDINGisGREEN. The material prepared in the course of this action is available here.

Once these studies had been carried out, a Baseline was obtained with which to compare the results obtained. The design of the Baseline can be downloaded from the results section of the website.

Taking into account the time at which the works started in each pilot building, the amount of information in the Baseline varies for each intervention. In the case of Solana de los Barros, whose works started first, the Baseline was elaborated with a smaller amount of information than in the case of the pilot building in Évora, whose works started in the last phase of the project. Despite this, in all three pilot buildings, the Baseline obtained was sufficiently consistent to allow comparison with the subsequent results obtained during the surveys of action C3.

The execution of the works in the three pilot buildings involved the installation of the NBS prototypes designed for LIFE-myBUILDINGisGREEN in the building structures and exterior surfaces, the implementation of induced natural ventilation and seasonal shading systems, and the installation of permeable paving. Although permeable paving was installed in the Solana de los Barros and Évora buildings, due to the high cost of the prototype version, it was only installed and tested at laboratory level in the facilities of the Eduardo Torroja Institute of Construction Sciences (IETcc-CSIC), obtaining results of its effectiveness.

Prior to the installation of the NBS prototypes, the Royal Botanical Garden (RJB-CSIC) carried out a study on the best plant species to be used in each building and with each type of solution (roofs or façades). This study lasted throughout the course of the project, as some of the species selected did not behave as originally planned, which meant that they had to be replaced after the works had been completed.

During this action, documents were produced such as technical manuals for the NBS used in the pilot buildings, a work matrix with the selection of plant species to be used in the designed prototypes, action plans for the implementation of induced natural ventilation and seasonal shading formulas, and technical manuals for the installation of permeable surfaces, which aim to facilitate the process of transferability of these solutions to any person or entity wishing to use them in the future. All this documentation is available in the results section of the website.

In the case of the Solana de los Barros building, an additional 6 months of effective NBS monitoring is needed to obtain more conclusive results. This time is extended to a year and a half in the case of the Porto building, and the full two years of monitoring are necessary in the case of the Évora building, whose works were completed the same month as the end of the LIFE-myBUILDINGisGREEN project.

In addition to the time needed to conclude the actual monitoring in the three pilot buildings, it is necessary to continue the long-term monitoring to check the effect of the NBS at a more advanced stage of vegetation development.

The LIFE-myBUILIDINGisGREEN project partners have committed themselves to carry out all necessary sampling during the After-LIFE period (March 2024 – February 2028). To do so, they have elaborated a realistic and coherent document, available here, in which they will use their own funds and those of other initiatives related to the project in order to conclude the monitoring and other actions of the After-LIFE period on transferability and communication of the results in the long term.

In this section, you can download the full report of the results obtained at the end date of LIFE-myBUILDINGisGREEN (February 2024). As more consistent results on the impact of the implemented NBS are obtained, this document will be updated and disseminated to the target groups identified by the project.

Based on the documentation generated and stored in the documentation platform, the project team held a series of meetings with key stakeholders with an interest in the objectives of LIFE-myBUILDINGisGREEN. As a result of these meetings, a series of agreements were reached that would allow the transferability of the project’s actions and facilitate the subsequent use and implementation of the project’s NBS in other contexts. These agreements and the mechanisms that facilitate the transferability of the project’s NBS are referred to as Governance Tools.

The documentary platform, the report with the governance tools identified and the report with the progress achieved by the project in the development and use of these governance tools are available in this and the following sections.

By way of summary, among the agreements signed and the progress achieved, the following stand out: (a) signing of territorial agreements with 14 municipalities in Central Alentejo, in which they commit to use NBS for the climate adaptation of public buildings; (b) signing of declarations of interest to promote initiatives for the implementation of NBS as a climate change adaptation measure with 8 municipalities in the province of Badajoz; c) inclusion of the NBS concept and its benefits in the municipal regulations of the City Council of Porto; d) signature of a letter of support from the unit responsible for the Technical Building Code (CTE) in the Spanish Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, in which the interest in the NBS of the project and the advice offered to include them in the future in the Online Catalogue of Building Solutions of the CTE is confirmed.

To address this objective, a Replicability Plan of the project was created, which is available in the results section of the website. Based on this plan, several replicability deliverables, intervention protocols, recommendation reports, etc. were developed, highlighting the design of 15 example projects in 15 schools in different European countries, representing the four major climate risk areas of the continent. For each of these schools, an analysis of bioclimatic strategies was carried out and, based on basic characteristics such as the type of roof, the height of the buildings or their orientation, the best LIFE-myBUILDINGisGREEN NBS were proposed for each building, estimating what their real impact would be and what energy savings could be made in each case.

In addition to these open-access theoretical deliverables, on-site events were organised in the three pilot buildings to raise awareness of the particularities of the NBS implemented in each case. These workshops were aimed at technical profiles, municipal and regional authorities and technicians, as well as school managers, with the idea of promoting the transferability of the project’s NBS to other buildings or contexts. The programmes of these workshops, as well as the rest of the documentation elaborated in action C5, can be consulted in this and following sections.

In parallel to the development of the database, the Nature-Based Solutions Package for Climate Adaptation in Buildings was prepared, which is what we have called the “LIFE-mBiG Climate Adaptation Package”. This is a deliverable that is composed of a series of documents that are a training resource to be used later on with different audiences, with priority being given to trainers in early childhood, primary and environmental education centres, as well as more technical profiles.

The database has served as an organisational document for the subsequent dissemination of the LIFE-mBiG Climate Adaptation Package to those people and institutions that can make use of the material contained therein, either through education or through the use of the Nature-Based Solutions implemented by the LIFE-myBUILDINGisGREEN project.

In addition, the project partner institutions themselves will use part of these educational resources generated in future training programmes to raise awareness of the project’s NBS among students in their regions, using the pilot buildings as references in the use of NBS for the adaptation of buildings to climate change. An example is the training programme developed and launched in November 2023 by the City Council of Porto in the Falcão school, pilot building of the project, whose contents are included in the LIFE-mBiG Climate Adaptation Package, which is available here.

This action summarised the socio-economic situation of the project intervention regions, analysed the economic impact of the project actions and the social benefits acquired by the population affected by the project, and synthesised the environmental impact of the project, which is further developed in deliverable C3. “Report and results of the monitoring and evaluation of the proposed impacts on the pilot buildings” of LIFE-myBUILDINGisGREEN. All this information has been collected in the elaboration of the socio-economic report of the project that can be consulted in this section.

Among the documents created in the communication actions, the Layman report of the project, the networking report with all the collaboration relations with other initiatives, and several reports of the communication events organised by LIFE-myBUILDINGisGREEN, such as round tables, conferences, exhibitions, congresses, etc. were elaborated.

One of the most remarkable milestones among the communication actions is the creation of an online training on the experience of LIFE-myBUILDINGisGREEN, which introduces the problem of temperature increase in buildings due to climate change, possible NBS available to address this environmental issue, the experience of the three pilot buildings, as well as the monitoring scheme and the first results obtained. The online training is available at this link.

To consult all the documentation generated by the LIFE-myBUILDINGisGREEN project in relation to its communication actions, we recommend accessing this and following sections.

Finally, within the coordination and management actions of the project, there was also a commitment to draw up an After-LIFE work plan for the five years following the end of the project. In the case of the LIFE-myBUILDINGisGREEN project, the elaboration of this Plan was a particularly important task as it included the commitment and planning of the project partners to conclude the monitoring actions that could not be carried out during the course of the project. The complete After-LIFE Plan can be found here.