24 January 2023

With the Decree of 23 June 2022 (published in the Official Gazette of 6/8/2022) the Ministry of Ecological Transition (today the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security) ordered the revision of the “Minimum environmental criteria for awarding the design and execution of construction works”.

In particular, the new decree «Minimum environmental criteria for the assignment of the design service for building interventions, for the assignment of works for building interventions and for the joint assignment of design and works for building interventions.» replaces the previous minimum environmental criteria published with the Ministerial Decree of 11 October 2017 and came into force on 4/12/2022.

The new CAMs, with reference to brick roofs, introduce an important novelty by recognizing ventilated roofs as the construction systems capable of reducing the “summer heat island” effect and atmospheric pollution.

Below, the extract of the CAM decree:

Reduction of the “summer heat island” effect and air pollution

The project of new construction and urban restructuring interventions guarantees and foresees:

  • that for the roofs of the buildings (excluding the surfaces used to install equipment, technical volumes, photovoltaic panels, solar collectors, and other devices), green areas are provided, or ventilated roofs or roofing materials that guarantee an SRI index of at least 29 in cases with a slope greater than 15%, and at least 76 for roofs with a slope lower than or equal to 15%.

This criterion can favor very thick terracotta and ceramic floors for outdoors laid on sand, gravel or grassy surfaces and discontinuous floors as well as brick roofing surfaces with a high solar reflectance index.

Ventilated brick roofs directly satisfy this criterion, without necessarily complying with the SRI value required for roofs with a slope greater than 15%.

Verification: The CAM Report, of which criterion “2.2.1-CAM Report”, illustrates how the project has taken this design criterion into account.