Every industry uses standards to support business processes: standardization lead to greater harmonization of processes, products, and materials.

While the building and infrastructure sector assume its own industry standards for physical objects (electrical power ratings, for instance) digital and data standards are needed to keep pace with technological changes, such as the adoption of building information modelling (BIM). Digitisation is enabling designers and constructors to create and disseminate information more quickly and accurately than ever before. However, sharing this information digitally in the huge and highly fragmented global built asset industry is increasingly difficult. For data to flow easily, and for the resulting benefits to be shared across the built asset industry, the standards need to be developed collectively by the key stakeholders within it from designers and constructors to owners and operators.

In Europe, the EN and ISO standards developed (or adopted, in the case of ISO) mainly by CEN/CENELEC establish shared and verifiable definitions. Standardization work has now reached the stage where it can offer a neutral, shared environment for all stakeholders.

• Between 2014 and 2022, CEN/CENELEC revised certain construction standards to take account of the future climate, under the direction of its coordination group on adaptation to climate change, which acted based on a mandate received in 2014 from the Commission. EN ISO 14090:2019 “Adaptation to climate change – Principles, requirements and guidelines” has been developed.
• The organisation of data around the objects to be built (ISO 16739; IFC4.3 under instruction at ISO), the organisation of information management processes (ISO 19650) and the structuring of business knowledge linked to construction objects (ISO 23386) already exist, as does the PLCS standard (ISO 10303-239), which enables data to be kept consistent, maintainable, exchangeable and durable, whatever the information systems and throughout the product life cycle.

While BIM is mostly encouraged but not mandatory, the use of openBIM is not specified. openBIM means the use of standards that are independent from any proprietary software. openBIM have been initiated and maintained by buildingSMART International (bSI) for over 20 years, with a growing membership of over 30 national chapters (more than half of which are EU member states). Without openBIM, there is the risk of the proliferation of incompatible digital solutions that will bring confusion and inefficiencies among the economic operators.

openBIM ensures that:

• Interoperability is key to the digital transformation in the built asset industry
• Open and neutral standards should be developed to facilitate interoperability
• Reliable data exchanges depend on independent quality benchmarks
• Collaboration workflows are enhanced by open and agile data formats
• Flexibility of choice of technology creates more value to all stakeholders
• Sustainability is safeguarded by long-term interoperable data standards

openBIM is a viable, proven and established approach within the bSI community, that now needs to be brought to the consciousness of the European Commission, to make a better use of the European funds to support the implementation of such open standards. The EU chapters involved in bSI see an opportunity for their voluntary work to be pooled, to maximise the beneficial impact at both EU level and within their own countries. Finally, the European Forum of openBIM can share the initiatives of a number of countries working, for example, on taxonomy and property valuation (Denmark: https://www.ds.dk/taksonomi; Spain, etc.).

More information about openBIM: openBIM Definition – buildingSMART International