From data to action: A methodological approach to address energy poverty in private multi-family buildings

Achieving the decarbonization of the building stock by 2050 requires not only technological innovation but also strategies capable of addressing energy poverty, which threatens to exclude millions of households from a fair transition. Measuring this phenomenon remains challenging: at the European level, monitoring systems rely mainly on aggregated statistics, useful for territorial comparisons but often too approximate to describe the conditions of individual households and dwellings. This paper proposes a building-scale methodology that integrates socio-economic and technical data collected directly through surveys, interviews, and utility bills. The approach was applied to a private multi-family building built in the early twentieth century in Turin (Italy), involving 16 households. Results indicate that 31% of households exceed the 10% energy expenditure threshold, with heating emerging as the main cost driver. Correlation analyses suggest that single parameters such as income or dwelling size are not sufficient on their own to explain vulnerability, whereas the integration of socio-technical factors provides a more detailed picture of household conditions. Based on this evidence, four intervention strategies were developed, ranging from the insulation of the envelope to the installation of photovoltaics, conceived to be implemented progressively according to real technical and economic constraints. The novelty of this study lies in linking building-scale evidence with concrete design solutions, bridging the gap between measurement and action.