Expeditive method for balancing energy, environment, and costs in sustainable building regeneration: application to a prefabricated school in Bologna

Renovating the existing school building stock requires fast, transparent decisions that balance energy, environmental, and economic outcomes. We present S.C.O.R.E.S. (Sustainable Construction or Renovation Easy Sco ing), a rapid multi-criteria tool that integrates modeled energy demand, life-cycle indicators – including biogenic carbon in line with EN 15804 – and life-cycle costs to rank alternative scenarios. The tool is demonstrated on a public school in Bologna (Italy), comparing a baseline and three intervention packages. Results show that envelope and HVAC upgrades can reduce delivered energy and global warming potential substantially while maintaining acceptable life-cycle costs; sensitivity analysis confirms the robustness of rankings to weights and benchmarks. We discuss how S.C.O.R.E.S. supports early-stage design and policy by making trade-offs explicit, documenting assumptions, and enabling reproducible comparisons. The paper provides (i) a transparent scoring framework with open benchmarks, (ii) its application to a relevant building type, and (iii) guidance to interpret results in terms of energy, environment, and costs. The approach aims to assist policymakers, designers, and school owners in prioritizing renovation strategies under time and data constraints.