Project description

Mission and context

Across Europe, improving the energy performance of buildings has become a key priority for achieving climate neutrality, strengthening energy security and improving quality of life. Building renovation plays a central role in this transition, but planning and delivering renovation programmes remains a complex challenge. Improving energy security through greater efficiency and the deployment of renewable energy, while adapting the built environment to climate change, has become a pressing priority across Europe.

Building renovation is a key component of this transition. Beyond energy savings, well-designed renovation programmes have the potential to improve indoor comfort, strengthen social equity, and deliver long-term environmental and economic benefits. To maximise these outcomes, renovation potential must be assessed not only at the level of individual buildings, but within their broader spatial context – at the neighbourhood and building stock levels.

REAHUB responds to this challenge through an integrated framework that connects building-level assessments with urban-scale analysis. It operates as a two-way learning system, structured around an interrelated flow of action:

  • Building stock assessment identifies where renovation efforts will have the greatest impact and supports the definition of coordinated renovation strategies.
  • Building-level interventions implement these strategies in individual buildings. The resulting performance data and practical experience help improve future assessments, inform updates to regulations and standards, and strengthen the data and methods that underpin renovation planning.

The REAHUB technical solution

The EU seeks to accelerate renovation under the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), but fragmented information and dis-connected tools continue to slow implementation.

REAHUB addresses this gap through an integrated framework that connects urban-scale analysis with building-level renovation decisions. The project adopts a holistic approach, bringing together data, policies and assessment schemes within a coherent system that enables more consistent decision-making across governance levels. The framework covers the full renovation cycle, from strategic planning and prioritisation of interventions to financing and project delivery.  This is operationalised through a digital platform that supports municipalities, policymakers, practitioners, financial institutions and building owners with a coherent set of tools, services and training resources.

Bridging urban and building scales

REAHUB connects urban-scale priorities with building-level action, operating across two interrelated dimensions. The framework is being validated through pilot initiatives in Austria, Italy and Spain, where each regional context presents distinct features and tests how integrated data and assessment methods can support the renovation process in practice. Across all three pilots, the work addresses two critical challenges:

  1. Linking renovation to urban regeneration and sustainable development: Understanding where to prioritise renovation efforts and how to finance them. REAHUB combines Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) data with cadastral, socioeconomic and environmental information to produce a comprehensive diagnosis of the building stock, covering typology, age, energy class and consumption. This enables the identification of priority areas and building typologies, such as the least energy-efficient residential segments, while supporting renovation strategies that contribute to wider sustainability objectives, including social inclusion and the regeneration of underserved neighbourhoods.
  2. Integrating multiple certification schemes for lifecycle building performance: Strengthening the data foundation for better decision-making. REAHUB integrates EPCs with Smart Readiness Indicators (SRIs) and Renovation Passport (RPs) schemes by establishing standardised cross-referencing procedures and semi-automated links between databases. This improves data quality, reliability and interoperability, enables RPs information to be incorporated into EPCs databases and Digital Building Logbooks. In doing so, the project provides evidence to support the further development of the Article 22 building database, including reporting processes to the Building Stock Observatory (BSO) and National Building Renovation Plans (NBRPs).