Call for papers

The global energy landscape is undergoing unprecedented volatility driven by escalating climate extremes and geopolitical shifts, requiring a re-evaluation of traditional building energy methods and approaches. Simultaneously, buildings and infrastructure are transitioning from a singular focus on energy efficiency toward a holistic paradigm of resilience-driven performance. In this era of climate adaptation, high-performing buildings and infrastructure are defined not merely by low energy consumption, but by their capacity to withstand climate impacts, maintain functionality, and recover swiftly from disruptions.

Accordingly, energy performance must evolve from a static design prerequisite into a dynamic, lifecycle process. This themed collection explores the critical intersection of buildings, smart grid technologies, and energy policies designed to endure environmental pressures. It emphasises adaptive, regenerative design and climate-resilient thinking to extend asset lifecycles and advance scalable, city-wide approaches. These frameworks must simultaneously mitigate climate change and ensure operational continuity during natural disasters and prolonged environmental shifts.

Serving as a strategic roadmap for academics, engineers, architects, and policymakers, this collection addresses the dual challenge of achieving net-zero goals amid a changing climate. Papers are expected to include case studies, new technology for carbon mitigation, building and infrastructure innovation, and climate change actions that can reduce energy consumption, but also contribute to reducing carbon emissions in the short and long run of their service life. The collection will accept original research, literature reviews, opinion papers and optimisation through modelling and simulations.

Our towns and cities are currently navigating a period of unparalleled instability and transformation impacted by the effects of climate change, which has had its effects slowly and also at unprecedented instances with impactful, unaccounted natural disasters. Historically, the primary benchmark for evaluating building and infrastructure performance has been a singular focus on low-cost energy efficiency—minimising consumption under normalised operational conditions. However, as the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events escalate, and as global energy security is increasingly challenged by shifting geopolitical dynamics, these traditional metrics are no longer sufficient. To safeguard urban environments, cities and their infrastructure must transition towards a more holistic paradigm: resilience-driven performance. A shift is required from a single building or infrastructure project to a more holistic and collectively operating urban landscape, linking data intelligence with optimised performance and climate action-led solutions. Many of these assets will be evaluated by their capacity to withstand severe climate impacts, optimise performance under stress, maintain critical functionality during crises, and recover swiftly from disruptions.

This collection aims to receive papers that address the way our buildings and urban/ sub-urban infrastructure have the capacity to meet their ambitious carbon targets, but at the same time withstand the impacts of a changing climate.

Achieving sustainable energy performance must evolve from a static, static-design prerequisite into a dynamic, lifelong process. With that in mind, the following themes/ sub-themes can be considered when choosing to submit a paper to this collection:

• Studies on ways to extend the operational life of assets
• Role of district heating systems in enhancing urban energy resilience and decarbonisation
• City-scale approaches considering urban infrastructure
• Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through climate change adaptation
• Maintaining operational viability during natural disasters
• Impacts of prolonged environmental shifts
• Critical intersection of buildings, smart grid technology, and energy policy frameworks
• Localised building innovations that scale up to support macro-level grid stability
• Renewable energy innovation that supports urban areas during and after disasters

Submission Deadline: 1 December 2026

Lead Editors

Eliza Hotchkiss, National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), USA, Co-Editor-in-Chief of Cambridge Prisms: Energy Transitions.

Julio Bros-Williamson, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, UK, Senior Editor of Cambridge Prisms: Energy Transitions.

Antoine Reguis, Edinburgh Napier University, UK, Editor of Cambridge Prisms: Energy Transitions.