Building passports and material inventories – concepts, trends, job sharing

Abstract

The real estate industry is motivated to contribute to a more sustainable built environment. To meet future sustainability goals, building owners and other decision makers rely on high-quality building-related data. On the one hand, possibilities to collect, access and exchange data improve constantly due to developments in information technology. On the other hand, the task to manage data as a growing and versatile resource becomes more difficult. To overcome resulting challenges, the use of building passports, that can serve as a life cycle data repository for single buildings, can be very useful. The importance of building passports is more and more recognised within the industry, but there is an ongoing discussion about their original function. For this reason, the contribution firstly explains the origins of building passports and how the concept has evolved over time. Furthermore, the following research questions are addressed: (1) What are the main goals, functions and requirements of building passports? (2) Which current developments are related to building passports and how do specific concepts differ? (3) How can a job-sharing with other instruments like material passports be realised and what are the benefits? The research focuses on the situation in Germany considering developments on EU level.

European building passports: developments, challenges and future roles

“…First attempts have been made by the present authors to distinguish the concepts according to their focus in the building life cycle and the data categories they primarily cover (Figure 4). Buchholz & Lützkendorf (2022) propose to integrate several tools and their functions in a job-sharing approach with BPs at the forefront. This proposal goes along with findings on the functionality of renovation roadmaps, for example, which should be implemented alongside a BP/DBL (Fabbri et al 2016).…”

“…The main advantages of a digitised version are its dynamic character, the including of three-dimensional (3D) formats, and the possibilities of automation and scalability (Gómez-Gil et al 2022a). Automation will play an important role in the realisation of specific BP functions, such as alert and reminder processes Source: Buchholz & Lützkendorf (2022).…”

Building passports in their role as building information systems - background, framework, implications

“…One of these tools are building passports (BPs) [2], also known under the more recent term 'digital building logbook' (DBL) [3]. The idea of BPs is known for more than 40 years [4,5], but never led to a widespread establishment. A new interest in BPs derives from the increased complexity of building-related information management and the potentials of digitization, automation, and technological advancements [5].…”

“…The idea of BPs is known for more than 40 years [4,5], but never led to a widespread establishment. A new interest in BPs derives from the increased complexity of building-related information management and the potentials of digitization, automation, and technological advancements [5]. Therefore, a BP is increasingly interpreted as 'building information system' (BIS).…”

“…Despite the renewed interest in BPs, which is reflected in the increased number of publications [5], political reports, and business models, there are still open questions. A selection of those is raised as research questions:…”