Abstract

"The Building Performance Database (BPD) is the nation's largest dataset of information about the energy-related characteristics of commercial and residential buildings. The BPD combines, cleanses and anonymizes data collected by federal, state and local governments, utilities, energy efficiency programs, building owners and private companies, and makes it available to the public" (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2022). Data curated by Carnegie Mellon University Libraries.

Methodology

Data were combined across the datasets listed on the BPD website (Menu button -%3E Public Datasets -%3E List of Files).

Usage

• The raw data were collected from public sources by the BPD.

%3C!-- --%3E

• The BPD-curated data are for public use.
• Data from multiple years are included.

%3C!-- --%3E

• The building identifiers in the id column may be duplicated across data sources.

%3C!-- --%3E

*** THIS DATA IS A SNAPSHOT AS AT 31ST MARCH 2025 *** A building is defined as basic information about the physical characteristics of the building. A property may consist of a single building or many buildings, associated with one or many holdings.

The ‘Building’ dataset provides key information about the physical characteristics, energy performance and occupation costs of each building. Cost information is only provided for certain types and size of building. Certain buildings may have more than one entry in the data extract as government has more than one ‘interest’ in that property. Again, the extract provides information about the ‘owning’ government department and the ‘property centre’, i.e. that part of the government department responsible for that property. In addition, it has a property reference (the ‘ePIMS Property Ref’) that allows it to be linked to the other data extracts.

The scope of the data includes land and property information for those government departments, together with any arms’ length bodies for which they are responsible, including their non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), which fall under the responsibility of English Ministers. These assets are primarily located in England, but are also located in the devolved administrations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales as well as overseas. Also, some Local Authorities have chosen to publish their property data as part of our transparency exercise.

The Open Database of Buildings (ODB) is a collection of open data on buildings, primarily building footprints, and is made available under the Open Government License - Canada. The ODB brings together 65 datasets originating from various government sources of open data. The database aims to enhance access to a harmonized collection of building footprints across Canada.

This dataset contains building information for all buildings that have completed a WiredNYC survey. This includes buildings that have opted-out from displaying their profiles publicly. Therefore, the building-specific data (e.g. building address) provided is anonymous and only linked to the borough the building is located in.

This dataset pulls from many different data sources to identify individual building characteristics of all buildings in Boston. It also identifies high-potential retrofit options to reduce carbon emissions in multifamily buildings, using the best available data and assumptions from building experts.

Building characteristics will require on-site verification before an owner can act on them.

Find out more about carbon targets for Boston's existing large buildings.

This dataset is a categorical mapping of estimated mean building heights, by Census block group, in shapefile format for the conterminous United States. The data were derived from the NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, which collected “first return” (top of canopy and buildings) radar data at 30-m resolution in February, 2000 aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor. These data were processed here to estimate building heights nationally, and then aggregated to block group boundaries. The block groups were then categorized into six classes, ranging from “Low” to “Very High”, based on the mean and standard deviation breakpoints of the data. The data were evaluated in several ways, to include comparing them to a reference dataset of 85,000 buildings for the city of San Francisco for accuracy assessment and to provide contextual definitions for the categories.

A Global Database on Whole Life Carbon, Energy and Material Intensity of Buildings (CarbEnMats-Buildings)

• Data descriptor article (Preprint): https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8378939
• Data records / database (this repo): https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8363895
• Latest version: Available via https://github.com/mroeck/carbenmats-buildings (main)

Abstract

Globally, interest in understanding the life cycle related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of buildings is increasing. Robust data is required for benchmarking and analysis of parameters driving resource use and whole life carbon (WLC) emissions. However, open datasets combining information on energy and material use as well as whole life carbon emissions remain largely unavailable – until now.

We present a global database on whole life carbon, energy use, and material intensity of buildings. It contains data on more than 1,200 building case studies and includes over 300 attributes addressing context and site, building design, assessment methods, energy and material use, as well as WLC emissions across different life cycle stages. The data was collected through various meta-studies, using a dedicated data collection template (DCT) and processing scripts (Python Jupyter Notebooks), all of which are shared alongside this data descriptor.

This dataset is valuable for industrial ecology and sustainable construction research and will help inform decision-making in the building industry as well as the climate policy context.

Background & Summary

The need for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across Europe require defining and implementing a performance system for both operational and embodied carbon at the building level that provides relevant guidance for policymakers and the building industry. So-called whole life carbon (WLC) of buildings is gaining increasing attention among decision-makers concerned with climate and industrial policy, as well as building procurement, design, and operation. However, most open buildings datasets published thus far have been focusing on building’s operational energy consumption and related parameters 1,2,2–4. Recent years furthermore brought large-scale datasets on building geometry (footprint, height) 5,6 as well as the publication of some datasets on building construction systems and material intensity 7,8. Heeren and Fishman’s database seed on material intensity (MI) of buildings 7, an essential reference to this work, was a first step towards an open data repository on material-related environmental impacts of buildings. In their 2019 descriptor, the authors present data on the material coefficients of more than 300 building cases intended for use in studies applying material flow analysis (MFA), input-output (IO) or life cycle assessment (LCA) methods. Guven et al. 8 elaborated on this effort by publishing a construction classification system database for understanding resource use in building construction. However, thus far, there is a lack of publicly available data that combines material composition, energy use and also considers life cycle-related environmental impacts, such as life cycle-related GHG emissions, also referred to as building’s whole life carbon.

The Global Database on Whole Life Carbon, Energy Use, and Material Intensity of Buildings (CarbEnMats-Buildings) published alongside this descriptor provides information on more than 1,200 buildings worldwide. The dataset includes attributes on geographical context and site, main building design characteristics, LCA-based assessment methods, as well as information on energy and material use, and related life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, commonly referred to as whole life carbon (WLC), with a focus on embodied carbon (EC) emissions. The dataset compiles data obtained through a systematic review of the scientific literature as well as systematic data collection from both literature sources and industry partners. By applying a uniform data collection template (DCT) and related automated procedures for systematic data collection and compilation, we facilitate the processing, analysis and visualization along predefined categories and attributes, and support the consistency of data types and units. The descriptor includes specifications related to the DCT spreadsheet form used for obtaining these data as well as explanations of the data processing and feature engineering steps undertaken to clean and harmonise the data records. The validation focuses on describing the composition of the dataset and values observed for attributes related to whole life carbon, energy and material intensity.

The data published with this descriptor offers the largest open compilation of data on whole life carbon emissions, energy use and material intensity of buildings published to date. This open dataset is expected to be valuable for research applications in the context of MFA, I/O and LCA modelling. It also offers a unique data source for benchmarking whole life carbon, energy use and material intensity of buildings to inform policy and decision-making in the context of the decarbonization of building construction and operation as well as commercial real estate in Europe and beyond.

Files

All files related to this descriptor are available on a public GitHub repository and related release via Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8363895). The repository contains the following files:

• README.md is a text file with instructions on how to use the files and documents.
• CarbEnMats_attributes.XLSX is a table with the complete attribute description.
• CarbEnMats_materials.XLSX is the table of material options and mappings.
• CarbEnMats_dataset.XLSX is the building dataset in MS Excel format.
• CarbEnMats_dataset.txt is the building dataset in tab-delimited TXT format.

Further information

Please consult the related data descriptor article (linked at the top) for further information, e.g.:

• Methods (Data collection; data processing)
• Data records (Files; Sources; Attributes)
• Technical validation (Data overview; Data consistency)
• Usage Notes (Attribute priority; Scope summary, Missing information)

Code availability (LICENSE)

The dataset, the data collection template as well as the code used for processing, harmonization and visualization are published under a GNU General Public License v3.0. The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works. We encourage you to review, reuse, and refine the data and scripts and eventually share-alike.

Contributing

The CarbEnMats-Buildings database is the results of a highly collaborative effort and needs your active contributions to further improve and grow the open building data landscape. Reach out to the lead author (email, linkedin) if you are interested to contribute your data or time.

Cite as

When referring to this work, please cite both the descriptor and the dataset:

• Descriptor: RÖCK, Martin, SORENSEN, Andreas, BALOUKTSI, Maria, RUSCHI MENDES SAADE, Marcella, RASMUSSEN, Freja Nygaard, BIRGISDOTTIR, Harpa, FRISCHKNECHT, Rolf, LÜTZKENDORF, Thomas, HOXHA, Endrit, HABERT, Guillaume, SATOLA, Daniel, TRUGER, Barbara, TOZAN, Buket, KUITTINEN, Matti, ALAUX, Nicolas, ALLACKER, Karen, & PASSER, Alexader. (2023). A Global Database on Whole Life Carbon, Energy and Material Intensity of Buildings (CarbEnMats-Buildings) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8378939
• Dataset: Martin Röck. (2023). mroeck/carbenmats-buildings: Pre-release (0.1.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8363895

Buildings Completed: Useful Floor Area: Non Residential: Others: Farm Buildings data was reported at 3,067,583.000 sq m in 2017. Buildings Completed: Useful Floor Area: Non Residential: Others: Farm Buildings data is updated yearly, averaging 3,067,583.000 sq m from Dec 2017 (Median) to 2017, with 1 observations. Buildings Completed: Useful Floor Area: Non Residential: Others: Farm Buildings data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Central Statistical Office. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Poland – Table PL.EB001: Buildings Completed Statistics: by Type.

To date, databases focusing on unreinforced masonry have primarily been developed exclusively at the element level, specifically for stone and brick masonry walls. However, despite the significance of understanding the seismic behavior of complete buildings, a database of experimental results at this structural level had not been developed to date. This repository provides an open-access database containing the results of 69 shake-table experiments on unreinforced masonry structures that have been tested over previous decades. The database is organized in a consistent format, allowing the engineering and research communities to access detailed information and results of each test conveniently. This project seeks to play an important role in enhancing modeling techniques, model validation, and reducing uncertainties, thereby benefiting earthquake engineering researchers and practitioners and promoting improvements in design and retrofitting standards, particularly for unreinforced masonry buildings, by facilitating the search, exchange, and reuse of experimental data from shake-table tests.

Please cite as: Haindl, M., Beyer, K., & Smith, Ian F. C. (2023). "A database of shake-table tests conducted on unreinforced masonry buildings". Submitted to Earthquake Spectra

Poland Buildings Completed: Capacity: Residential: OD: One Dwelling Buildings data was reported at 47,385,026.000 Cub m in 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 48,181,967.000 Cub m for 2015. Poland Buildings Completed: Capacity: Residential: OD: One Dwelling Buildings data is updated yearly, averaging 46,655,490.500 Cub m from Dec 2001 (Median) to 2016, with 16 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 77,663,533.000 Cub m in 2003 and a record low of 24,752,610.000 Cub m in 2001. Poland Buildings Completed: Capacity: Residential: OD: One Dwelling Buildings data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Central Statistical Office. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Poland – Table PL.EB001: Buildings Completed Statistics: by Type.

The NYC Department of City Planning’s (DCP) Housing Database contains all NYC Department of Buildings (DOB) approved housing construction and demolition jobs filed or completed in NYC since January 1, 2010. It includes the three primary construction job types that add or remove residential units: new buildings, major alterations, and demolitions, and can be used to determine the change in legal housing units across time and space. Records in the Housing Database Project-Level Files are geocoded to the greatest level of precision possible, subject to numerous quality assurance and control checks, recoded for usability, and joined to other housing data sources relevant to city planners and analysts.

Data are updated semiannually, at the end of the second and fourth quarters of each year.

Please see DCP’s annual Housing Production Snapshot summarizing findings from the 21Q4 data release here. Additional Housing and Economic analyses are also available.

The NYC Department of City Planning’s (DCP) Housing Database Unit Change Summary Files provide the net change in Class A housing units since 2010, and the count of units pending completion for commonly used political and statistical boundaries (Census Block, Census Tract, City Council district, Community District, Community District Tabulation Area (CDTA), Neighborhood Tabulation Area (NTA). These tables are aggregated from the DCP Housing Database Project-Level Files, which is derived from Department of Buildings (DOB) approved housing construction and demolition jobs filed or completed in NYC since January 1, 2010. Net housing unit change is calculated as the sum of all three construction job types that add or remove residential units: new buildings, major alterations, and demolitions. These files can be used to determine the change in legal housing units across time and space.

United States Imports from Mexico of Prefabricated Buildings was US$68.65 Million during 2024, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade. United States Imports from Mexico of Prefabricated Buildings - data, historical chart and statistics - was last updated on June of 2025.

Construction Permits: Area: Non Residential: Other Public Buildings data was reported at 40.000 sq m th in Jun 2018. This records a decrease from the previous number of 81.000 sq m th for Mar 2018. Construction Permits: Area: Non Residential: Other Public Buildings data is updated quarterly, averaging 48.500 sq m th from Mar 2015 (Median) to Jun 2018, with 14 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 113.000 sq m th in Sep 2015 and a record low of 31.000 sq m th in Dec 2017. Construction Permits: Area: Non Residential: Other Public Buildings data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Central Bureau of Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Israel – Table IL.EA002: Number and Area of Construction Permits.

Poland Buildings Completed: Residential: OD: Buildings data was reported at 68,521.000 Unit in 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 69,722.000 Unit for 2015. Poland Buildings Completed: Residential: OD: Buildings data is updated yearly, averaging 65,247.000 Unit from Dec 2001 (Median) to 2016, with 16 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 106,288.000 Unit in 2003 and a record low of 33,363.000 Unit in 2001. Poland Buildings Completed: Residential: OD: Buildings data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Central Statistical Office. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Poland – Table PL.EB001: Buildings Completed Statistics: by Type.

The goal of the ZuBuD Image Database is to share image data sets with researcheres around the world. To facilitate this, we have created this site, which contains over 1005 images about Zurich city building. The detail information about the database can be found on our Technical Report:TR-​260.

Information on building organisations of private buildings in Hong Kong.

United States Imports from Italy of Prefabricated Buildings was US$27.95 Million during 2024, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade. United States Imports from Italy of Prefabricated Buildings - data, historical chart and statistics - was last updated on June of 2025.

The Virginia Geographic Information Network (VGIN) has coordinated the development and maintenance of a statewide Building Footprint data layer in conjunction with local governments across the Commonwealth. The Virginia Building Footprint dataset is aggregated as part of the VGIN Local Government Data Call update cycle. Localities are encouraged to submit data bi-annually and are included into the Building Footprint dataset with their most recent geography.Building footprints are polygon outlines of structures remotely rendered through digitizing of Virginia Base Mapping Program’s digital ortho-photogrammetry imagery, or digitizing of local government subdivision plats. VBMP building footprints are a collection of locally submitted data and as published from the Virginia Geographic Information Network carry no addressing, nor is there any ownership, resident information, or construction specifications provided.VBMP building footprints are not assumed to be of survey quality and carry no guarantee as to accuracy. Even with these restrictions and limitations, building outlines are a valuable resource for geospatial analysis and derivative data development. Data input from localities are processed and published quarterly. To date the majority of Virginia’s localities building footprints have been captured but not all.GDB Version: ArcGIS Pro 3.3Additional Resources:Shapefile DownloadREST Endpoint

Buildings: A simplified point layer of California State Parks buildings, providing location, name, function and other attributes. Current as of October 2024.