Built World

Data sharing for
the built world

From design to decommissioning

Imagine that at the point of investment, an investor could mandate the data flows that demonstrate net zero at the points of design, construction, operation and decommissioning, in a manner they can assure and apply incentives to hold each stage to account on provable net-zero delivery. IB1's approach makes this possible.

Cross-sector NIMBUS Building Passport Impact investing SERI

To create a safer, more sustainable and resilient future we need to improve our built environment and infrastructure to a changing climate. The built environment sector is heavily reliant on its value chain to decarbonise. Data infrastructure across the building lifecycle is essential to unlocking the investment needed for net zero.

The challenge

Net zero across the building lifecycle

IB1 Built World

To meet climate targets, trillions in investment will be needed to decarbonise buildings through renovation and new construction. But the lack of trusted, comparable data across design, construction, operation and decommissioning is blocking capital allocation and creating systemic risks.

Investment gap

The EU estimates a EUR 2.75 trillion investment gap to 2030 for building decarbonisation alone. Companies are increasingly prioritising ESG factors when making decisions on which buildings to lease or buy, but lack the data infrastructure to verify claims.

Scope 3 challenge

Scope 3 emissions in the built environment span mining, extraction, processing of raw materials, construction, operation, and disposal. Organisations find it challenging to quantify and report on these emissions without standardised data flows across the value chain.

Data quality and trust

Research shows that within impact investing, there are significant issues with access to, quality of, and trust in environmental data. Green building certifications and features that reduce emissions need verifiable, assured data to be credible.

Cross-sector dependencies

Built world data intersects energy (smart meters, grid carbon intensity), finance (green lending, insurance), water (usage efficiency), and transport (EV charging infrastructure). No single sector can solve this alone.

Flagship programme

Project NIMBUS: asset resilience through data

NIMBUS, a partnership with SSEN Transmission, SSEN Distribution and Icebreaker One, is an ambitious project with the potential to accelerate the transition to net zero by prolonging the life of assets, improving their reliability and management through the introduction of new, granular data sources and improvements to network asset design, investment and operations.

Weather and asset degradation

Weather conditions are known to accelerate wear and tear on assets but little research has been done to quantify this. NIMBUS explores and quantifies this by using data about the weather experienced by the asset with the asset’s service history to identify key weather factors in Probability of Failure calculations.

Economic benefits

The ability to forecast asset degradation more accurately enables a risk-based approach to condition assessment that has the potential to reduce assessment frequency and cost for low-risk assets, reduce penalty costs due to network downtime, and improve grid connectivity.

Network resilience

Improving the accuracy of grid-wide risk scoring within the asset risk models and methodologies used within the UK energy systems secures a resilient electricity network for the future.

Open and transferable

The principles, methodologies, and tools developed are designed to be reused and retooled for different assets across the sector. All outputs are openly licensed to maximise industry-wide value.

NIMBUS Discovery Report Full NIMBUS page
Use case

Climate-Ready Building Passport

A building passport provides the means to capture and share data on a building’s lifecycle (design, build and operation) and provide owners with a pathway to meet greenhouse gas reduction goals. The data can be used to improve energy efficiency, reduce emissions, and provide better assessment of climate-related risks for the insurance industry.

Data
Physical asset

Adoption of sustainable construction practices, sustainable materials, scoring systems, and Building Information Modelling (BIM) data.

Data
Live information

Real-time monitoring and publication of energy usage, heat and energy loss, energy production, weather measurements (flood, wind) for parametric payout.

Output
GHG pathway

A verifiable pathway from current emissions to net zero, with data-driven evidence at each stage of the building lifecycle.

Output
Risk profile

Better assessment of risks associated with climate change for the insurance industry, enabling climate-ready insurance products via the SERI programme.

Related programmes

Connected across sectors

The built world sits at the intersection of energy, finance, insurance, and infrastructure data. IB1’s programmes connect across these sectors through common Trust Framework governance.

Alpha
Project NIMBUS

Asset resilience through weather and climate data for electricity network infrastructure. Partnership with SSEN Transmission and SSEN Distribution. Read more

Beta
SERI

Standard for Environment, Risk and Insurance. The Climate-Ready Building Passport use case connects built world data to insurance products. Read more

Alpha
Impact Investing

Data infrastructure for net zero investment in the built environment. Focused on bridging the data gap between investors and building performance evidence. Read more

Live
Perseus

Smart meter data for SME emissions reporting connects directly to building-level energy data. Read more

Live
Open Energy

Energy sector data sharing standards provide the supply-side data infrastructure that building passports depend on. Read more

EUR 2.75T
Estimated investment gap to 2030 for building decarbonisation in Europe
Cross-sector
Connects energy, finance, insurance, and infrastructure data under common governance
Lifecycle
Design, construction, operation, and decommissioning data flows
CC-BY
All IB1 built world outputs openly licensed
Get involved

Ready to connect data across the building lifecycle?

Whether you are an investor, insurer, asset manager, construction company, or technology provider, IB1 can help you navigate the data infrastructure needed for net zero buildings.

Contact partners@ib1.org Join the Constellation

All IB1 outputs are CC-BY licensed. IB1 is non-partisan, non-profit, and sector-neutral.