Green perspectives for Italian buildings façades

Although the theme has been studied for more than a decade, the green transformations of buildings are limited in practice and often new buildings, by large private or public estates, promoted and publicized it to gain public support. Is it possible to think about a widespread action to "green" our cities? If in other European countries the responsive-ness to this issue is certainly greater, in Italy there is still too little attention on this topic (in facts some people seem to be still more focused on economic expenditure than on the environmental impact) and the presence of a historical/monumental building herit-age can be a further issue, because it requires specific authorization process (longer times) and rises the level of the restoration project (costs). Neglecting the monumental heritage which actions (on a national scale) can "green" the big cities, starting from the maintenance of the building facades? The paper introduces, first, the new national "facade bonus" that will be used to improve building facades, in a perspective of greater urban decorum, with a tax credit of 90% for the restoration and recovery expenses. Then, it analyses the current maintenance condi-tion of private properties and some green facade solutions. Assuming widespread inter-ventions in the form of extraordinary maintenance, it discusses - for a case study -environmental (water and CO2) and economic issues. At the end, it proposes some modifications to the recent national rules to facilitate interventions, awarding not just the simple redevelopment of the facades but, where possible, "green" actions on build-ings to achieve the Strategic Agenda objectives.