Within the context of the 2030 global sustainable development agenda, Level(s) is a reporting tool to assess the circular and sustainable performance of buildings. Level(s) uses core sustainability indicators to measure carbon, materials, water, health, comfort, and climate change impacts throughout a building’s full life cycle. It assesses buildings by:

• Bringing together building and sustainability professionals to discuss objectives
• Establishing indicators for all project stages

The tool is based on several macro-objectives, including the reduction of GHG emissions for buildings, the degree of thermal comfort and insulation, and the life-cycle costs (€/m2/year). The full list can be found here. The project team will decide on the objectives, indicators, and the level. The level ranges from the conceptual design (including the energy needs for each type of building), to construction including energy simulations, and monitoring, including energy meters to calculate real-time energy consumption.

Level(s) could be interesting to Solar Heat Europe’s members, as it requires knowledge from the heating and cooling sector. Specifically, it will require companies to assess the risk of thermal discomfort during the different heating & cooling seasons, the necessary indoor thermal conditions, and provide a framework of energy requirements to make an overheating assessment of buildings to obtain building permits. This would also include collecting data to determine the level of thermal comfort.

This will all be supported by training tools, such as a calculator to assess sustainability performance, which will be available soon under the following link.

Should Level(s) be relevant to your organization, Solar Heat Europe recommends the following readings, especially those in Macro-Objectives 4 and 5.