study of zero carbon buildings and policy principles in residential environment for sustainable development

Nowadays, many countries have taken measures and policies for development of zero or low carbon buildings. regarding the technological advancements from one hand and increase of problems from the other hand, sustainable development has been recognized as one of the priorities on developed countries. sustainable development is a new platform considering politics and culture and at the same time emphasizes on economy, trade and industry and also supports environment, nature and equality of human rights. building can bring various advantages and disadvantages for our society and environment. therefore, the main objective of the present research is to investigate the main concepts of carbon-zero buildings in order to reduce energy consumption in buildings. in this way, effects and logic of carbon application has been recognized as an index of sustainability. the methodology of this research is analytical and documental research method. the results of research show that, improvement of buildings energy efficiency by technological, supervision, voluntarily and financial encouragements is desirable. as urban areas have high potential for improvement of energy efficiency, low carbon buildings, in addition to building technology, residential environments with low carbon have to be designed in urban areas and spatial planning can also play an important role in guiding the building sector to use lower amount of carbon.