Level(s) – a tool to deliver a sustainable built environment in Europe

The EU Level(s) framework can play a key role in mainstreaming sustainable buildings and deliver on key European environmental, economic and social goals. Tackling the impact of whole life carbon – both the operational and embodied carbon – from buildings is an important prerequisite to meet Europe’s long-term energy and climate targets.

The European Commission already has the basis for a strong policy to tackle whole life carbon, with the Level(s) framework.  Level(s) is a framework of common European indicators offering a transparent and harmonised reporting framework to measure and account for the sustainable performance of buildings across their whole lifecycle.

The vision, supported by over 30 organisations in the buildings and construction community, calls on the European Commission to support the integration of Level(s) into a set of EU policies or a regulatory framework, a potential ‘Sustainable Performance of Buildings Directive’.  An appropriate first step could be the integration of the whole life carbon, circularity and health indicators into the existing regulatory framework by 2024.

The letter concludes that the stakeholder community is ready to work with the incoming Commission to fully leverage the potential of Level(s) in mainstreaming sustainability and provides a series of recommendations on initial areas of activity where the European Commission can support this work.