Over 160 persons attended the joint 34^th AIVC, 3^rd TightVent, 1^st venticool and 2^nd Cool Roofs’ Conference held in Athens, Greece on 25-26 September, 2013. The conference focused on research, technologies, policies and market transformation to employ in an optimal way proper mitigation and adaptation techniques with the aim to reduce the energy consumption of buildings and improve the urban microclimate. Furthermore, focus was set on the energy impact of ventilation and air infiltration while ensuring good indoor air quality and thermal comfort, as well as converging work on smart materials to reduce the carbon footprint of the building sector.

Ventilative cooling was one of the major themes since the potential of this technique is more and more considered to reduce the cooling energy demand in summer or mid-season conditions, depending on outdoor climate, building design and internal loads. The ventilative cooling track of the conference consisted of 4 sessions with 27 presentations covering the following topics:

• Ventilation for summer comfort – energy impacts
• Experience with ventilative and passive cooling
• Ventilation and cooling strategies
• Ventilative cooling in standards and regulations – Challenges for Annex 62

The paper available here gives a bird’s eye view of trends and conclusions that appeared in the presentations and discussions in the ventilative cooling track of the conference.