Building Information Modelling is a critical element in the digitalization of the construction industry, which is necessary in order to unleash huge efficiency and productivity improvements. BIMERR will design and develop a Renovation 4.0 toolkit which will comprise tools to support renovation stakeholders throughout the renovation process of existing buildings, from project conception to delivery. It comprises tools for the automated creation of enhanced building information models, a renovation decision support system to aid the designer in exploring available renovation options through an the accurate estimation of renovation impact on building performance as well as a process management tool that will optimize the design and on-site construction process toward optimal coordination and minimization of renovation time and cost. At the heart of the BIMERR toolkit lies an interoperability framework, which will enforce semantic interoperability among BIMERR tools as well as with third-party legacy ICT tools to enable seamless BIM creation and information exchange among AEC stakeholders in an effort to enhance the rapid adoption of BIM in renovation of the existing EU building stock. The BIMERR toolkit will be validated and demonstrated in 4 buildings in 3 European Member States. Two buildings will be used for pre-validation and implementation refinement and the refined BIMERR toolkit will support the actual renovation design and works in one residential building in Poland and a second one in Spain. The assessment and evaluation of the BIMERR toolkit after these real-life activities will feed material into two supporting horizontal project activities: i) dissemination and exploitation of project outcomes through the creation of best practice examples of BIMERR use that will guide further replication effort, and ii) promotion of BIMERR outcome to the most relevant standardization bodies.

Buildings are responsible for 40% of the energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse emissions in the EU. 80% of the buildings we will occupy in 2050 are standing today, with adequate measures, they have the potential to reach 70% reduction in their GHE gas emissions and energy savings worth €270 billion per year. The market for Energy Efficient Building product and services in Europe amounts €41 and growing at a 10.3% CAGR. However, building owners, when considering alternatives in a design or retrofit project, are challenged by high investment costs, uncertainty about savings and the complex nature of the domain. These are the main barriers preventing a wider adoption of building refurbishing projects. At Xylem Technologies, Austrian SME established in 2009, we are focused on the development of fundamentally new tools aimed towards a lower carbon economy. In lieu of the potential in EEB we started development of Semergy to provide the methodologies and ICT tools necessary to stimulate energy efficiency retrofitting. The architecture of Semergy is based on a novel and unique application of semantic web technologies (ontologies) that enable systematic retrieval and reorganization of data from multiple sources available on the Internet. No other commercial tool has this capacity and reduces the design effort by 70%. Building owners will be able to assess technologies available for their specific need with our Decision Support System that interactively compare retrofit options against criteria of cost, energy reduction and sustainability. Contractors will access a pool of building owners in our Marketplace and enhance efficacy of the design with the Optimization Environment. As a result, for EEB product and services providers, Semergy will provide a unique Product Placement Tool. They benefit from direct access to a curated target audience. Conversion rate is increased by being specified early in the design phase and just one sale compensates the cost of Semergy.