Advanced data platforms to integrate whole life carbon in building information tools, assessments, and certification (Built4People Partnership)

This Destination targets the energy demand side, notably a more efficient use of energy in buildings and industry. It contributes to the activities of the Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan) and its implementation working groups.

This Destination contributes directly to the Strategic Plan’s Key Strategic Orientations ‘Green transition’, ‘Digital transition’ and ‘A more resilient, competitive, inclusive and democratic Europe’.

In line with the Strategic Plan, the overall expected impact of this Destination is to contribute to the ‘Using energy in buildings and industry in an efficient, affordable and sustainable way’.

The main impacts to be generated by topics under this Destination are:

Highly energy-efficient and climate neutral European building stock

1. The energy performance of the European building stock is improved at an accelerated pace, contributing to the EU's energy security, while the buildings and the built environment have reduced climate and environmental impact throughout their life cycle.
2. The energy renovation and construction of buildings are cost-efficient, affordable and less disruptive.
3. The buildings are increasingly interacting with the users, energy system and their environment while operating in an integrated, resilient, secure, smart and flexible manner.
4. The buildings and the built environment are more climate resilient, accessible, inclusive and delivers multiple benefits which improve the quality of life, health and well-being for all users.

Industry

1. The energy efficiency of EU energy intensive industries is improved, their consumption of fossil fuel and their GHG and other pollutants emissions are drastically reduced, notably through cost-effective electrification, use of renewable energy, heat recovery, thereby preserving / enhancing their global competitiveness.

Legal entities established in China are not eligible to participate in both Research and Innovation Actions (RIAs) and Innovation Actions (IAs) falling under this destination. For additional information please see “Restrictions on the participation of legal entities established in China” found in General Annex B of the General Annexes.

Expected Outcome:

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Increased number of building information tools, assessments and/or certificates makes use of digital data exchange platforms;
• More accurate and reliable EU-aligned life cycle inventories of embodied environmental flows in construction materials and products;
• Increased number of already existing building standards and certification schemes refer to GWP to support national decarbonisation strategies in line with relevant European legislation (such as Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, Construction Products Regulation and delegated acts, voluntary label for carbon footprint of steel, Delegated Act for carbon removal certification in long-lasting products);
• Improved data availability and interoperability for whole life carbon assessments across different building lifecycle stages.

Scope:

The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) recast places an increased emphasis on addressing whole life carbon and the calculation of the global warming potential (GWP) of buildings as part of its holistic approach to enhancing building sustainability. Several projects have focused on developing data analytics tools to integrate building energy performance certificates (EPCs) with other tools like the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI), Building Renovation Passports (BRPs), and Digital Building Logbooks into a unified framework or global information tool. More work is needed to integrate whole life carbon data in energy information tools to capture both operational carbon (energy used during the building's use phase) and embodied carbon (associated with extraction of raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, construction, and eventual disposal or recycling), as well as the (potential for) carbon removal in sustainably sourced construction products. On the other hand, more robust life cycle assessments based on more accurate and reliable national and international life cycle inventories of embodied environmental flows are needed to set up a solid construction digital product passport system.

Proposals are expected to address all of the following:

• Demonstrate digital data exchange platforms for buildings to enable the development of comprehensive building information tools, assessments and/or certificates. These platforms should incorporate a wide range of data from, for example, whole life carbon assessments, national/international databases of embodied flow coefficients for construction materials and products, Digital Product Passports, Energy Performance Certificates, Smart Readiness Indicators, Building Renovation Passports, and Digital Building Logbooks.
• Use advanced data analytics and wherever possible existing recognised data standards to exchange data and ensure the interoperability with real-time digital twins and BIM-based models.
• Validate the proposed platforms in at least three large scale pilots. These pilots must encompass a range of building types (such as residential, commercial, educational, etc.) and address diverse use cases (including energy monitoring, renovation optimization, etc.).

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on ‘People-centric sustainable built environment’ (Built4People). As such, projects resulting from this topic will be expected to contribute to the objectives of Built4People, transfer knowledge to its network of innovation clusters^[1] and report on results in support of the monitoring of the Built4People KPIs.

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[1] https://built4people.eu/b4pic_network/