Existing databases as means to explore the potential of the buildingstock as material bank

Abstract

Awareness of the huge environmental impact of buildings has created more interest in resource efficiency and in the potential of circular economy. This is not only relevant for new buildings. Also the existing building stock represents a great amount of building materials, which could become available for reuse and recycling in the future. Currently, there is no database in Belgium that reflects the potential of existing buildings as material banks. Nevertheless, existing databases, e.g. the EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) database of the Flemish Energy Agency (VEA), contain valuable information on the material content in the existing building stock. Therefore, this paper explores the possibility of combining existing databases to reflect the (future) potential of the existing building stock as material bank. The two main databases under study are: 1) the EPC database of VEA which contains general building characteristics, such as building volume, building typology, floor area and information on the building envelope of more than 1 million buildings in the Flemish region and 2) the database of Essencia Marketing, a marketing agency specialized in the construction sector, which contains general building characteristics as well as geometrical and material data on almost 6000 new residential buildings spread all over Belgium (constructed between mid-2010 and mid-2017). The data in the databases are discussed and possible methods to combine data from both databases are explored.