The building sector holds a prominent position in energy consumption (40%) and CO2 emissions (36%) within the European Union. Moreover, current construction and renovation practices are huge raw material consumers and highly waste producers. Despite the efforts, on an EU scale, renovation rates are far below the minimum required, now only reaching around 1% of the building stock per year. These drawbacks bring forward the impact of rising material extraction, shrunk global circularity from to 7.2% in 2023. To facilitate closing this performance and design-to-market gap in the built environment, DeCO2 aims to address the compelling need for advancing innovative technological applications and solutions on the built environment, focusing on building elements, materials, products, and technologies. The project also aims to set up solid and long-lasting partnerships within the legal and regulatory framework and other stakeholders addressing the whole value chain for socio-economic innovation, facilitating to close the performance and design-to-market gap, including for historical and cultural heritage buildings. A well-segmented audience targeting developers, policymakers, and the construction industry will ensure effective market penetration, as DeCO2 is projected as an aligned solution to the EU's sustainability aspirations. Collaborative engagement, showcasing tangible benefits and dedicated digital presence will embrace the entire building-life cycle and all the relevant stakeholders involved in each innovation action stage of renovation projects, materials, and techniques (targeting TRL 8) that contribute to space users overall health and wellbeing, comfort and inclusivity.

Buildings are responsible for approximately 40% of energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions in the EU. Deep Renovation of existing old buildings has the potential to lead to significant energy savings and a tremendous carbon footprint shrinkage. The current EU climate targets open an ample opportunity for exponential growth in the building thermal insulation materials market owing to the increasing number of new residential buildings and current deep renovation needs. The target is to support residential building´s construction performance extraordinary at all three hierarchical levels of construction parts simultaneously (building, component, material) by creating an amplified environmental impact and reducing additionally VOC emissions. BIO4EEB will apply non-hazardous bio-based material as e.g., Posidonia and various bio-based foams to develop and to proof the marketability of smart components for external and internal use as material application, pre-fab panels or windows. The efficiency and effectiveness is quite important to match with market demands and establish a unique selling proposition including a seven years RoI! BIO4EEB will close the increasing gap of insulation material shortage caused by the regular growing demand and the mismatch caused by lacking production potential and the outcome of the current energy crisis by boosting the use of available bio-based qualified materials as alternative solutions. The objective is to substitute using fossil resources for components and replace them at a comparable price value positioning. New business models utilizing the complete economic value chain open the market for bio-based BIO4EEB solutions and products uplifting the generic bio-based material use and qualifying their application at a circular economy approach for creating a much greener EU building and construction industry real estate stock.

INCEPTION realises innovation in 3D modelling of cultural heritage through an inclusive approach for time-dynamic 3D reconstruction of artefacts, built and social environments. It enriches the European identity through understanding of how European cultural heritage continuously evolves over long periods of time. INCEPTION’s Inclusive approach comprises: time dynamics of 3D reconstruction (‘forever’); addresses scientists, engineers, authorities and citizens (‘for everybody’); and provides methods and tools applicable across Europe (‘from everywhere’). INCEPTION solves the shortcomings of state-of-the-art 3D reconstruction by significantly enhancing the functionalities, capabilities and cost-effectiveness of instruments and deployment procedures for 3D laser survey, data acquisition and processing. It solves the accuracy and efficiency of 3D capturing by integrating Geospatial Information, Global and Indoor Positioning Systems (GIS, GPS, IPS) both through hardware interfaces as well as software algorithms. INCEPTION methods and tools will result in 3D models that are easily accessible for all user groups and interoperable for use by different hardware and software. It develops an open-standard Semantic Web platform for Building Information Models for Cultural Heritage (HBIM) to be implemented in user-friendly Augmented Reality (VR and AR) operable on mobile devices. INCEPTION collaborative research and demonstration involves all disciplines (both social and technical sciences), technologies and sectors essential for creation and use of 3D models of cultural heritage. SMEs are the thrust of INCEPTION consortium that will bring the innovation into creative industries of design, manufacturing and ICT. The Consortium is fully supported by a Stakeholder Panel that represents an international organisation (UNESCO), European and national public institutions, and NGOs in all fields of cultural heritage.

NEED FOR INNOVATION: The critical mass of Energy-efficient Buildings (EeB) in Europe by 2020 will be achieved through sustainable industrialisation of high-performance architectural, structural and building-service components. However, realising the targeted performance in design is hampered by critical shortcomings during on-site construction and refurbishment that cause a lower built-quality and sub-optimal energy-saving in the building lifecycle. OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT: INSITER aims to eliminate the gaps in quality and energy-performance between design and realisation of energy-efficient buildings based on prefabricated components. The key innovation of INSITER is the intuitive and cost-effective Augmented Reality that connects the virtual model and the physical building in real-time. INSITER will develop a new methodology for self-instruction and self-inspection by construction workers, subcontractors, component suppliers, and other stakeholders during on-site working processes, supported by a coherent set of hardware and software tools. HOW THE OBJECTIVE WILL BE ACHIEVED: INSITER will substantially enhance the functionalities and capabilities of measurement and diagnostic instruments (like portable 3D laser scanners, thermal imaging cameras, acoustic and vibration detectors, real-time sensors) by means of a smart Application Programming Interface (API) and data integration with a cloud-based Building Information Model (BIM). The triangulation of Geospatial Information, Global and Indoor Positioning Systems (GIS, GPS, IPS) will support accurate and comprehensive Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR and AR). RELEVANCE TO THE WORK PROGRAMME: Through new self-inspection techniques, INSITER will fully leverage the energy-efficiency potentials of buildings based on prefab components, from design to construction, refurbishment and maintenance. It will scale-up the use of BIM for standardised inspection and commissioning protocols, involving all actors in the value-chain.

Reincarnate aims at enabling the European construction industry to significantly reduce construction and demolition waste (CDW) by providing a circular potential assessment information model platform (CP-IM) and a set of innovations to make use of the CP-IM. The CP-IM will provide a digital representation of building materials and products with life-cycle information and prediction methods for tracing and predicting the lifetime of a products / material. The CP-IM will also allow for assessing the potential for lifetime extension and reuse and possibilities to predict circular value flows. Based on the CP-IM REINCARNATE will develop and demonstrate ten innovations that use CP-IM data, ranging from innovations for building inspection, to solutions for planning construction and dismantling, to automatically identifying and sorting CDW, to decision support tools for architects and real estate managers. The innovations will draw upon emerging digital technologies, such as digital twin representation, artificial intelligence, and robotic automation. REINCARNATE will also develop detailed social science insights about the social adoption behavior existing in the wider construction industry that will allow for understanding how a wide realization within the industry can be established that building products and materials can be reincarnated and re-used in high product quality. All innovations will be demonstrated on five selected demonstrators. Business process guidelines, an online learning platform with training materials and proposals for standards will be developed to additional foster widespread dissemination and exploitation of the REINCARNATE results. The REINCARNATE consortium combines 16 partners from different EU member countries and Hong Kong with strong expertise in digital twins, lifecycle prediction, material assessment, social sciences, construction management, architecture, and real estate management.