Eco Wise Official Response to the EU Digital Building Logbook Standardisation Request
Eco Wise Official Response to the EU Digital Building Logbook Standardisation Request
Today, Eco Wise submitted its formal consultation response to the European Commission regarding the draft standardisation request for Digital Building Logbooks (DBLs). We welcome the EU Commission's initiative and are pleased to contribute to this important process as part of our ongoing commitment to advancing digitalisation and sustainability in the European built environment.
The draft Implementing Decision, notified on 22 January 2026 under the EU Standardisation Regulation, requests the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) to develop two complementary European standards: a framework for the development and implementation of Digital Building Logbooks, and a core data template for reporting and information exchange. Both standards are scheduled for adoption by 31 October 2028. The initiative is rooted in the European Strategy for Housing Construction (COM(2025) 991), published in December 2025, which envisions Digibal Building Logbooks as a central pillar of a more competitive and productive construction industry.
Digital Building Logbooks have the potential to fundamentally transform how data flows across the construction value chain. Today, critical building information is fragmented across disconnected systems, lost at handover points, and locked in formats that cannot be easily shared or reused. A well-designed DBL changes this by creating a persistent, structured digital thread that accompanies a building from the earliest stages of design, through construction and handover, into decades of use and maintenance, through renovation, and ultimately to deconstruction. When building data flows in this intelligent, connected manner, every stakeholder — from the architect making initial design decisions across the construction process, to handover, building use, maintenance, renovation and finally to the demolition contractor assessing material reuse potential — is empowered to make better, faster, and more sustainable choices. This is the promise of the Digital Building Logbook that Eco Wise is showcasing today in real construction projects, and it is a promise worth getting right.
It is in that spirit that our consultation response identifies six areas where we believe the draft standardisation request could be strengthened to fully deliver on its ambitions:
- The Commission's stated objective is to support buildings across their entire life cycle, the data structure in the current draft is primarily oriented toward existing, in-use buildings. Eco Wise recommended the inclusion of explicit data categories for the design and construction phase, for renovation beyond performance certificates and renovation passports, and for deconstruction and demolition — ensuring the standards reflect the full life cycle vision.
- Eco Wise highlighted that Digital Product Passports, currently classified under "mainly static" physical and material data, can in practice function as dynamic data objects when linked to building components at batch or item level. We have recommended an optional dynamic data management dimension to support component-level tracking for maintenance, renovation, and circular economy purposes.
- Our response draws attention to the fact that the draft references only XML as an example of a machine-readable format, and recommends the explicit inclusion of modern formats such as JSON and JSON-LD to ensure alignment with current industry practice and semantic interoperability requirements.
- Eco Wise identified the absence of any reference to Building Information Modelling (BIM) or the IFC open standard as a significant gap, and have recommended that the standards address BIM data ingestion and alignment with established European and international BIM standards.
- A recommendation that the Commission require a standardised identity management framework for DBLs, building upon existing international standards such as the GS1 Global Location Number, combined with geographic coordinates and structured address information — providing the foundation for interoperable DBL registries across the EU.
- A recommendation that the standards define a role-based, phase-dependent data access framework, recognising that different stakeholders require access to different categories of data at different stages of the building life cycle.
Eco Wise is committed to supporting the successful development and implementation of Digital Building Logbook standards in Europe. More information is available in detail in our consultation response. We look forward to continuing our engagement with the EU Commission, CEN, and the wider stakeholder community to get Digital Building Logbooks right and deliver on the promise of a truly digital construction sector in Europe.
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Today, Eco Wise submitted its formal consultation response to the European Commission regarding the draft standardisation request for Digital Building Logbooks (DBLs). We welcome the EU Commission's initiative and are pleased to contribute to this important process as part of our ongoing commitment to advancing digitalisation and sustainability in the European built environment.
The draft Implementing Decision, notified on 22 January 2026 under the EU Standardisation Regulation, requests the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) to develop two complementary European standards: a framework for the development and implementation of Digital Building Logbooks, and a core data template for reporting and information exchange. Both standards are scheduled for adoption by 31 October 2028. The initiative is rooted in the European Strategy for Housing Construction (COM(2025) 991), published in December 2025, which envisions Digibal Building Logbooks as a central pillar of a more competitive and productive construction industry.
Digital Building Logbooks have the potential to fundamentally transform how data flows across the construction value chain. Today, critical building information is fragmented across disconnected systems, lost at handover points, and locked in formats that cannot be easily shared or reused. A well-designed DBL changes this by creating a persistent, structured digital thread that accompanies a building from the earliest stages of design, through construction and handover, into decades of use and maintenance, through renovation, and ultimately to deconstruction. When building data flows in this intelligent, connected manner, every stakeholder — from the architect making initial design decisions across the construction process, to handover, building use, maintenance, renovation and finally to the demolition contractor assessing material reuse potential — is empowered to make better, faster, and more sustainable choices. This is the promise of the Digital Building Logbook that Eco Wise is showcasing today in real construction projects, and it is a promise worth getting right.
It is in that spirit that our consultation response identifies six areas where we believe the draft standardisation request could be strengthened to fully deliver on its ambitions:
- The Commission's stated objective is to support buildings across their entire life cycle, the data structure in the current draft is primarily oriented toward existing, in-use buildings. Eco Wise recommended the inclusion of explicit data categories for the design and construction phase, for renovation beyond performance certificates and renovation passports, and for deconstruction and demolition — ensuring the standards reflect the full life cycle vision.
- Eco Wise highlighted that Digital Product Passports, currently classified under "mainly static" physical and material data, can in practice function as dynamic data objects when linked to building components at batch or item level. We have recommended an optional dynamic data management dimension to support component-level tracking for maintenance, renovation, and circular economy purposes.
- Our response draws attention to the fact that the draft references only XML as an example of a machine-readable format, and recommends the explicit inclusion of modern formats such as JSON and JSON-LD to ensure alignment with current industry practice and semantic interoperability requirements.
- Eco Wise identified the absence of any reference to Building Information Modelling (BIM) or the IFC open standard as a significant gap, and have recommended that the standards address BIM data ingestion and alignment with established European and international BIM standards.
- A recommendation that the Commission require a standardised identity management framework for DBLs, building upon existing international standards such as the GS1 Global Location Number, combined with geographic coordinates and structured address information — providing the foundation for interoperable DBL registries across the EU.
- A recommendation that the standards define a role-based, phase-dependent data access framework, recognising that different stakeholders require access to different categories of data at different stages of the building life cycle.
Eco Wise is committed to supporting the successful development and implementation of Digital Building Logbook standards in Europe. More information is available in detail in our consultation response. We look forward to continuing our engagement with the EU Commission, CEN, and the wider stakeholder community to get Digital Building Logbooks right and deliver on the promise of a truly digital construction sector in Europe.