As part of the European Green Deal the European Union (EU) targets by its “Renovation Wave strategy” to double the annual energy renovation rate of buildings and to foster deep renovations resulting in 35 million building units renovated by 2030. Major renovations can improve the energy performance of existing buildings. For this purpose, renovation passports can support owners and investors to plan an optimized timing and scope for interventions.
In April 2024 the Directive 2024/1275 on the energy performance of buildings was adopted by the EU creating a new legal framework for renovation schemes within the EU. Renovation passports are defined by the directive as “tailored roadmaps for the deep renovation of a specific building in a maximum number of steps that will significantly improve its energy performance”. They shall be part of the digital building logbook.
The paper aims to demonstrate the legal requirements for renovation passports and the lawful integration into the digital building logbook. Hence, the paper will reflect the provisions of the directive on the energy performance of buildings and link these to a compliant data and rights management within the data infrastructure of the digital building logbook. This will be done by the method of legal doctrine in the context of new legislation analyzing code regulation, jurisprudence, and legal sciences. Based on previous research on legal data governance for digital building passports a legal data governance model will be presented which aims at a consistent rights management during the whole building life cycle.
A practical example will be demonstrated from the field of civil engineering: The structural design review is part of the building permit process. Re-use or major renovation often require a building permit with a new structural design and review which can be optimized according to cost and safety by a renovation roadmap in a digital renovation passport.
The outcome of the research presented in the paper is a decision support for the legal optimization of a digital renovation passport and the legally compliant integration in the digital building logbook as a living data infrastructure within the building life cycle.