The Define(ing#PT) project, promoted by ICS – Instituto para a Construção Sustentável (Portugal) in partnership with Cobuilder AS (Norway), was an initiative carried out within the framework of the EEA Grants Fund for Bilateral Relations, between March 2023 and February 2024. The objective was to promote sustainability in construction through more efficient and digital management of data related to the characteristics of the products used in this sector.
ICS and Cobuilder, in line with previous projects, developed a set of technical cooperation actions, content development, awareness-raising and dissemination actions, which culminated in the launch of a data dictionary in Portuguese and the publication of the first ten data structures, including properties of the respective harmonized standards, and others required for sustainability analyses in terms of environmental impact and resource economy.
The draft, but not yet published, text regarding the new version of the Construction Products Regulation states in recital 93 an excellent summary of the vision and strategic actions developed within the scope of the Define(ing#PT) project:
“To improve machine readability, it is necessary to establish a common data dictionary based on European standards, a tool to govern and publish the data structure and their meaningful definitions and descriptions for all relevant construction products. For each product family or category, the data dictionary should include all the essential characteristics and other properties as set out in the harmonised technical specifications as well as other information required by this Regulation. A data dictionary harmonised at the Union level allows for the classification and use of structured definitions by both competent national authorities and in the further digitalisation of the construction sector, in particular in Building Information Modelling, building logbooks, digital passports and registries.”
Define(ing#PT) results and the demonstration of its operationalization enabled strategic decision-makers to gain clarity and initiated the capacity-building of sector stakeholders, especially product manufacturers, to meet the new requirements.
The Digital Product Passport is a tool for sustainability. Its success depends on the capacity to disclose data and systematize it in line with the requirements of the Ecodesign and Construction Products Regulations. The results of the Define(ing#PT) project are fundamental for understanding these requirements.
Review the actions and results on the websites of the promoting entity and the partner entity, as well as at: https://definehub.com/en/portuguese-data-dictionary/.