Three countries to participate in EU data building project

Czechia, Ireland and Spain will be the first countries to participate in a new initiative which aims to boost the availability of quality building climate data says the World Green Building Council.

Public-private approach of the project aims to secure broad support and investment (Photo: AdobeStock)

The Indicate initiative is said to accelerate policy development across Europe by generating critical baseline data for buildings, which can help guide policymakers to set carbon limits that cover the entire lifecycle impact of buildings, from manufacture and construction, through to deconstruction and waste processing - the so-called ‘whole life carbon limits’.

Leading markets like Denmark, Finland, France and the Netherlands have already enacted whole-life carbon policies. The first crucial step in setting these was to establish baselines. Other European countries are held back from following this example due to a lack of necessary data.

The public-private approach of the project aims to secure broad support and investment for the results from industry and policy makers alike, helping to ensure the resulting data can be quickly put to use.

Petr Serafín, director of the department of construction and building materials, Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic, says, “We greatly appreciate that we can participate with our projects in Indicate, which will financially and technically support the creation of several case studies mapping carbon emissions during the entire life cycle of buildings.

“We believe that thanks to this project we will obtain relevant data about the building stock, not only about new buildings, but also about existing objects. Valid data is essential to move towards carbon neutrality in decarbonisation, which we should achieve by 2050 according to the Paris Agreement. A big benefit of the project is that it also includes presentations of study results to all interested parties, including the state administration.”