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.

Building and ductwork airtightness was one of the major themes. The airtightness track of the conference consisted of 4 sessions with 16 presentations covering the following topics:

• Collection and analysis of field data
• Quality of ventilation systems
• Methods for characterizing airtightness – Durability
• Ventilation and airtightness nearly zero-energy buildings

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