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