Priority action 2 - development of guidelines for linking existing databases
Author | Carbonar, Giulia; Sterling, Raymond; Spirinckx, Carolin; Vandevelde, Birgit; De Groote, Maarten; Dourlens-Quaranta, Sophie; Lodigiani, Alessandro; Volt, Jonathan; Borragán, Guillermo; Glicker, Jessica; Kondratenko, Irena; Toth, Zsolt; Rajagopalan, Neethi; De Regel, Sofie; Rapf, Oliver; Calderoni, Marco; Loureiro, Tatiana |
Pages | 75-84 |
STUDY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF A EUROPEAN UNION FRAMEWORK FOR DIGITAL BUILDING LOGBOOKS
FINAL REPORT
75
CHAPTER 6: PRIORITY ACTION 2 - DEVELOPMENT OF
GUIDELINES FOR LINKING EXISTING DATABASES
Context of the action
The digital building logbook, as described in the Renovation Wave strategy and within this
study, relies on a connection that enables data exchange between several data repositories.
A large number of building information databases exist across the EU: the purpose of the
digital building logbook is to bring these data sources together and become a common
gateway to access all this data. Linking a large number of existing databases –such as
public registries (e.g. information on administrative aspects, soil, cultural heritage), LCA-
related (e.g. commercial life cycle inventory data like Ecoinvent, or EF-compliant data,
national EPD databases like for instance the Belgian B-EPD database46 or the French INIES
database47), national EPC databases, energy or water consumption, tenure or use, plans
etc, as well as databases related to the smart readiness indicator, building renovation
passports and the Level(s) framework –is thus vital for the success of digital building
logbook development and its implementation. Incorporating trustworthy data sources will
increase the chances for a successful implementation. Connecting all these data sources and
users requires common ‘languages’ – interfaces and protocols –to enable interoperability,
data consistency and information exchange.
To facilitate the development and implementation of digital building logbooks and maximise
their interoperability with existing databases, a coherent approach across Europe for linking
existing databases with the digital building logbook is recommended.
There are two main reasons for the need for a technical study developing guidelines on how
this can be achieved:
1)The legal framework regulating the processing of personal data is already in place,48
but the specifications for the content and technical structure still need to be
developed.
2)With the rapid digitalisation of the sector, there is currently strong ‘momentum’ to
drive the launch of the initiative.
Note that it is the primary focus of this task to provide guiding principles about how access
should be structured, rather than to describe the way in which the data coming in from the
different databases should be linked.
The digital building logbook acts as a gateway to facilitate the exchange of building-related
information. The linkage of the databases can be achieved by storing directly relevant data
or by creating a bridge to access it, as visualised in Figure 22.
46 The EPD is a database that allows manufacturers to communicate publicly the environmental impact of their
products –https://www.health.belgium.be/en/database-environmental-product-declarations-epd
47 INIES database collects environmental and health information of products, equipment and services for
evaluating the performance of construction works –https://www.inies.fr/home/
48 The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Data Protection Law Enforcement Directive and other rules
concerning the protection of personal data –https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection_en
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