The Building resource pass, introduced by the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB), forms the database for circular construction. It provides an overview of which resources of building material would be available for reuse in renovation and construction projects.

The introduction of the building resource pass could fundamentally change the construction industry as the energy certificate once did.

Daniela Schneider, Architect and Senior Consultant, EPEA — Part of Drees & Sommer

Uniform digital tools for documenting buildings

With the building resource pass, the DGNB has created a uniform, freely available standard. It is available in a complete and a reduced version, which should make it easier to get started. Some providers of digital tools for building documentation and optimization, such as Concular, Madaster or the “Urban Mining Index”, have already integrated the content of the DGNB Building Resource Pass. The same applies to ”Circularity Passports® — Buildings” the EPEA, which has already been built more than 130 times for high-rise buildings, including the first hotels.

Daniela Schneider, architect and senior consultant at EPEA — Part of Drees & Sommer in Stuttgart, hopes that buildings will become valuable raw material depots with the help of a building resource pass. “At 20 to 30 percent, materials account for a significant portion of gross construction costs. However, transparency is needed first in order for direct reuse to be possible on a large scale. The building resource pass could therefore fundamentally change the construction industry as the energy certificate once did. “The information on how much concrete, steel, wood and other materials are in a building is therefore worth cash when renovations, dismantling or a sale are pending.

This is the building resource pass

The idea for the building resource pass is based on the energy certificate model. The documentation, introduced by the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB), is intended to ensure transparency in the raw materials and products used and provide information on quality and recyclability. The aim is to provide data to promote urban mines, circular renovations and new construction as well as selective dismantling.

In the long term, the building resource pass should enable a consistent circular economy in the construction sector, in which all steps — from design to recycling — are intertwined. According to experts, this requires complete transparency about the materials and components used as well as their values and ownership. This creates new business models and joint economies that improve the quality of the built environment. In addition, the building resource pass can be used as a basis for evaluating the overall recyclability of buildings.

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This excerpt from the article is in the tophotel.de Issue 5/2025 published. By Stefanie Hütz. Photo credit ©Artinun