Isabel Aparisi-Cerdá

Urban mitigation policies are usually assessed through emissions reduction, technical feasibility, or economic performance, but they also reshape quality of life. This paper develops a cost-opportunity DEMATEL-ANP framework to assess the expected quality-of-life implications of urban mitigation policies while accounting for interdependencies among quality-of-life indicators. The framework separates quality-of-life opportunities from social costs rather than aggregating them into a single compensatory score. It is applied to 13 policies across energy, housing, urban planning, mobility and waste, and to 16 quality-of-life indicators grouped into environmental comfort, residential comfort, urban inclusion and health. The assessment shows that urban mitigation policies do not follow a single hierarchy of quality-of-life desirability, but instead display differentiated opportunity-cost profiles shaped by interdependent quality-of-life pathways. The causal analysis further identifies accessibility, residential energy conditions, housing security, energy poverty and health as key pathways for interpreting opportunities and social costs. Overall, the framework supports policy interpretation beyond ranking by distinguishing favourable actions, safeguard-dependent measures, socially sensitive technological strategies and complementary sectoral policies.

This research examines the drivers and barriers influencing the adoption of decentralised renewable energy technologies such as rooftop photovoltaic solar systems and consumer battery energy storage systems. Using the analytic network process, expert input from government, academia, and industry was used to prioritise a range of social, economic, institutional, and technical factors in both countries. The results show that while fiscal incentives and stabilised energy prices are common drivers in both contexts, Colombia faces stronger economic and technical barriers, such as limited access to funding and techno-economic uncertainty. Conversely, Spain's decentralised energy transition is primarily hindered by techno-economic uncertainty, challenges related to the electricity tariff structure, and the lack of technical definition and standardisation. This comparative analysis offers novel insights into expert-based priorities across two contrasting national contexts. Based on the findings, it is recommended that Colombia focus on enhancing access to finance and strengthening regulatory clarity, while Spain should refine existing frameworks and simplify technical procedures to facilitate the scaling up of RET adoption. Graphic abstract

The positive energy district (PED) concept is attracting growing research interest; however, the need for practical approaches to facilitate their implementation remains crucial. This study, framed in the COST Action ‘Positive Energy Districts European Network’, offers a comprehensive review of the roadmaps, pathways, and guidelines—namely ‘PED-Transition Approaches’—currently available to support the implementation of district-scale innovative models, thereby advancing energy transitions and enhancing livability at the city level. The review involved a systematic search and web scraping of documents, including scientific and grey literature, as well as EU-funded projects’ reports. The studies were identified according to multiple filters and eligibility criteria, then categorised in a structured repository using a multidimensional matrix, and finally examined following three-levels of detail (i.e., bibliometric study) overview and in-depth analysis. The findings reflect the main characteristics, gaps, and challenges in PED implementation by underlying the growing need for effective step-by-step, user-centric, and context-based transition approaches. In conclusion, the research, building on an extensive literature of multiple inspirational methodologies and their associated use cases, is a strong basis to develop sequential pathways to facilitate PED implementation among key stakeholders in a short–medium-term perspective towards a climate-neutral city vision.

The design of urban climate policies, crucial for the transition to sustainability, is shaped by the specific characteristics of cities, marked by structural inequalities and a noticeable gender bias. Careful planning of strategies to mitigate and adapt cities to climate change is essential, as their implementation may have unintended repercussions on gender equality. The inclusion of gender criteria not only enhances effectiveness in the selection and design of climate policies but also achieves a balance between technical proposals and those focused on governance. The involvement of multidisciplinary teams in policy formulation emerges as a key element to ensure an equitable and efficient design in its implementation. This coordinated and holistic approach facilitates effective action in addressing the intersection between climate change and gender in urban policies. The convergence of these perspectives is positioned as essential to comprehensively address the interconnected challenges of climate change and gender equality within the framework of a just transition to sustainability.