Building Passports could prevent RAAC-style scandals

The new documentation framework – dubbed Building Passport - could better record information on how buildings are designed, constructed, maintained and modified. The system is being designed to store all the key details about the construction of a building - including what materials were used, when they were last checked and when their lifecycle is due to end - all in one place.

Existing building passports, such as Material Passport frameworks, help developers reduce waste and contribute to a more circular economy. Other proposals for new passports are said to focus on building renovations to help improve energy performance, or to ensure that health and safety aspects of a building are properly understood prior to emergencies and in-keeping with changing policy.

According to Sheffield University, the use of these passports is limited to only a few exemplar cases and important data is fragmented across different systems, which makes it difficult to access, and often they have not been updated since a building was first constructed. The new system being developed at Sheffield, in the University’s Resources, Infrastructure Systems and built Environments (RISE) Group, aims to consolidate these existing passports into one standardised framework.