Policies to promote technologies for zero emission Cities: a case of estimation of the social and economic impact and possible advices for urban planning

International literature and recent studies confirms the very high social and economic cost of urban pollution. New green technologies in the field of urban and building construction can lead to important potential benefits on public health and public balance sheets if applied on medium-large scale. Since public policies should seriously consider the adoption of these new technologies also in urban planning. For this reason the paper analysed the case of nano-structured materials which, under ultraviolet radiations, are able to decompose a wide variety of atmospheric pollutants as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and nano-powder (PM10), actually very dangerous for human health, as many scientific studies here collected demonstrate. They can be employed in the production of pigments and mortars, which can be adopted on a wide urban scale and decreasing concentration in the local environment of air pollutants, thus reducing the incidence of morbidity and mortality, with clear social and economic benefits. This paper, implementing an appropriate methodology, tries to understand the level of these kind of benefits, with the aim to offer new elements for planning effective environmental policies at local level but also with a broader international relevance, because the urban pollution represents nowadays a great social-economic problem not only in industrialised Countries, but more and more in developing Countries.