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Written by Kell Jones, UCLC
The Building Passport Alignment Project was set up to fix a problem that’s undermining investment in the transition to a more sustainable built environment: the fragmentation and misalignment of the real estate ESG information space.
Different sustainability reporting regimes around the world are asking different stakeholders for different information in different ways and doing different things with that information. The outcome of this lack of consistency and fragmentation is confusion, a lack of performance comparability and transparency, and a growing information burden across the real estate information value chain.
This problem runs right the way through the value chain: finance companies are struggling to get the information they need to report against the demands of sustainable finance taxonomies, while construction product suppliers are having to recruit small armies of people to keep up with the increased complexity and variety of performance information requests.
The crazy thing is that these regulations and standards are all trying to do pretty much the same thing: define whether a building, portfolio or product is sustainable or not.
In the face of this realisation we asked ourselves a simple question:
“If we break these different standards down into their individual data points, can we identify a standard set of data to capture that answer all of the reporting requirements?”
And so, the Building Passport Alignment Project was conceived and born, delivered via a PowerPoint slide.
We are incredibly grateful to all of the Circular Buildings Coalition partners for trusting our early insights, and for their support in turning them into a Blueprint Project. Their funding has allowed us to take significant steps towards fixing this problem, to explore our ideas, and to raise the profile of our vision for data in the built environment (and beyond).
🔹 Data Alignment: A significant task at the heart of our Blueprint project was the review and aligned of materials-related data points. We now have coverage of 11 major publicly available sustainability frameworks, including BREEAM, LEED, LEVEL(s), WELL, and GRESB.
The outcome? We reduced over 3,100 data points into just 220! That’s a 93% reduction – making it much easier for everyone to engage with and act on critical data. It has also provided overwhelming validation of our original insights.
The really interesting thing in this process is that even within reporting schemes – which are written for humans to read and understand – data points are often called different things. So, the process of data point alignment hasn’t just happened between schemes, but within them too.
We’ve also been working with material passport project partners and international collaborators to ensure that we are interoperable with their data structures.
🔹 Open-Access Dashboard: We built an easy-to-use, open-access dashboard (check it out here) that is a structured store for our aligned data points. It means that you can identify the data points that you need to capture to report on portfolios, buildings and products, categorized by impact, data type, and asset level – from project to waste.
🔹 Community Development and Engagement: In our three workshops we have brought together policy makers, financial institutions, construction companies, property developers, construction product manufacturers and software developers. Through these workshops and over fifty more focused deep dives, we have co-created a vision for solving the challenges in built environment ESG reporting through digital transformation.
Our LinkedIn group grew to over 150 members around the world - showing an increasing interest in the project. This has opened up new opportunities, including collaborations with software developers, property owners and advisory roles on EU Horizon projects. We’re also working with EU standard setters who are looking to establish information standards for the Circular Economy.
🔹 Policy & Regulation: We’re now pushing for our Building Passport framework to be adopted as the common data dictionary for new regulations like the Construction Products Regulation (CPR). We’re also working with EU standard setters to see how they can leverage our work in the development of standards on Circular Economy information capture. Watch this space for updates!
🌍 This project has global relevance: By aligning data points from reporting regimes across Europe, Asia, and the U.S., we’ve shown that this approach work can work on a global scale, offering both top-down and bottom-up solutions.
This is important, because this isn’t just a European problem. Money crosses borders, introducing new countries’ reporting requirements depending on where the money comes from. A building in London could be funded from Japan, via an institutional investor in Europe. The building operator would need to understand the reporting requirements for each country the funding touches. I struggle to keep track of the reporting needs for one country.
In light of this, we’re really excited by our ongoing conversations with mindfulMaterials in the US on their Common Materials Framework, and those with Standards Australia who are working with the International Code Council on a Universal Data Protocol.
🌍 The importance of sharing our message across the value chain: The project’s early focus was on our own communities, real estate providers, construction, and digital solution providers. We’re really delighted at the engagement we’ve had from these groups. It’s likely because they are living with the problem every day that they can see the benefits of the work we’re doing.
Extending the conversation to include policymakers and finance providers will be critical to delivering the information infrastructure we need. Even though there’s already a recognition in EU Construction Product regulations that this work is needed, and the Platform on Sustainable Finance recognise the usability challenge too, finding the right pathways and language to engage these audiences has been quite a challenge. We’re grateful to our colleagues at BPIE, IIGCC and The Global ABC for help reaching some key stakeholders. Networks are amazing things.
📚 This could be huge: Since our initial flash of insight, we’ve become increasingly convinced that we’re on the right path. But more than that, by following the thought through we’ve realised that this kind of standardisation can lead to a revolution in how we capture, store, validate, assure and transfer data in the built environment.
We have a vision for a federated data environment where data is held, managed, and assured where it’s most appropriate. That data can then be pulled, seamlessly and on demand, to people across the information value chain who need that data.
The work of standardising data points at the building level represents the foundational steps to delivering that vision.
We’ve made an excellent start.
The Building Passport Alignment Project has shown us that standardising the building data ask isn’t just possible - it’s essential. By simplifying ESG reporting and creating a more interoperable ‘system of systems’, we can support the transition to a more transparent, sustainable built environment.
To keep moving forward, we need your help.
If you’re on the receiving end of the challenges of reporting ESG performance for real estate, we want to hear from you. We’re actively seeking case studies, implementation opportunities and feedback on our work to make sure they work when the rubber hits the road.
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