On 4 June, the two representatives of the BSO consortium opened a debate on how the EU BSO can further evolve as a practical tool for evidence-based buildings policy, EPBD implementation and national renovation planning.

After a short introduction to the BSO and its recent developments, participants were asked to work in around the following questions:

1. Which features would improve user experience and practical uptake of the BSO?

2. Which indicators are needed for emerging policy topics?

3. What would make BSO data credible enough for cross-country comparison and trend analysis?

From the beginning of the discussion, it became obvious that there is an interest in strengthening the BSO’s role as a monitoring and policy-intelligence tool.

Several improvement options were identified across the groups, including more granular building-stock data, stronger geospatial resolution and GIS-based functionalities, and better links between building-stock indicators and socio-economic data such as income, affordability and vulnerability.

Participants also pointed to national examples, including the Irish Building Stock Observatory (IBSO), as useful inspiration for more detailed and spatially explicit building-stock information. These examples helped illustrate that data availability and maturity differ significantly across Member States.

In addition, attendees highlighted several policy use cases where the BSO could provide added value in the coming years such as heating and cooling planning, grid connection needs, national target setting and monitoring, load management, and peak-load data.

Overall, a message was clear throughout the session: the BSO already provides an important basis for understanding Europe’s building stock. Its next development phase could further strengthen its role as a shared evidence base for implementation, monitoring and better-informed policy decisions.

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