EU Level(s) Framework
Level(s) is the European Commission’s voluntary assessment and reporting framework for measuring building sustainability through common life-cycle indicators.
Also known as: Level(s); Level(s) common framework; EU framework for sustainable buildings
Level(s) is not another green-building scorecard. It is the EU’s common reporting language for building performance: useful because it makes evidence comparable, limited because it does not certify, finance, procure, or approve a project.
Understand This First
- Whole-Life Carbon Assessment — the carbon-accounting frame behind indicator 1.2.
- Material Passport — the project evidence layer that can feed material and lifespan indicators.
- Building Resource Passport (BRP) — the asset-level summary record that can help owners report building-resource evidence.
This entry describes a voluntary EU assessment framework and its use in building projects, certifications, public procurement, and sustainable-finance evidence. It isn’t regulatory, certification, financial, planning, or procurement advice. A qualified professional has to evaluate the method required for a specific project, jurisdiction, rating scheme, or transaction.
What It Is
Level(s) is a voluntary European Commission framework of core indicators for assessing office and residential buildings. The Joint Research Centre developed it after the Commission’s resource-efficiency work on buildings, tested it in a beta phase from 2018 to 2020, and published the user manuals and indicator guidance.
The framework has six macro-objectives and sixteen indicators: life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions, resource-efficient and circular material life cycles, water use, healthy and comfortable spaces, climate adaptation and resilience, and optimized life-cycle cost and value.
Level(s) is organized around three reporting levels:
| Level | Project stage | What it asks the team to do |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Conceptual design | Use qualitative screening to choose relevant concepts and indicators. |
| Level 2 | Detailed design and construction | Quantify designed performance, compare options, and monitor construction evidence. |
| Level 3 | As-built and in-use | Record completed-building and early-occupation performance against design intent. |
Macro-objective 2 is the direct circularity vocabulary. Its indicators cover bill of quantities, materials and lifespans; construction and demolition waste; adaptability and renovation; and design for deconstruction, reuse, and recycling. Indicator 1.2 links those material choices to Whole-Life Carbon Assessment through life-cycle global warming potential.
Don’t treat Level(s) as a certificate. It is a reporting and assessment framework. Certification, regulatory compliance, finance eligibility, and procurement scoring depend on the scheme or authority using it.
Why It Matters
Project teams claim circularity in incompatible ways. One reports whole-life carbon, another waste diversion, another adaptability, another product data, and another future value. Those topics are related, but they are not comparable until the team names units, boundaries, stages, and evidence quality.
Level(s) gives project teams, public clients, rating schemes, lenders, and policy actors a shared indicator set. It helps a brief, design review, procurement response, certification map, or finance file ask the same question in the same language: what was measured, at which stage, with which assumptions? It also limits overclaim. A project cannot hide behind a diverted-waste percentage if the Level(s)-aligned file also asks how the building adapts, what materials it contains, and what evidence survives handover.
How to Recognize It
Level(s) evidence usually appears as a structured reporting frame, not a single score. Look for the six macro-objectives, the sixteen indicators, and a declared application level: Level 1 concept screening, Level 2 design and construction calculation, or Level 3 as-built and early in-use reporting.
The circularity signal sits in macro-objective 2. Indicators 2.1 through 2.4 ask what is in the building, how long materials and components are expected to last, what construction and demolition waste routes are planned or recorded, whether the building can adapt, and how elements can be deconstructed, reused, or recycled.
The carbon signal sits partly in indicator 1.2. A Level(s)-aligned circularity claim should connect material quantities and recovery assumptions to life-cycle global warming potential, not treat material circularity and carbon as separate stories.
The stage matters. Level 1 may only screen which indicators belong in the brief. Level 2 should produce quantities, calculations, waste assumptions, and design evidence. Level 3 records what was built, what changed, what was measured, and what the owner receives.
How It Plays Out
At Level 1, a public client can use Level(s) before design begins. The brief names whole-life carbon, material quantities and lifespans, deconstruction potential, water use, resilience, and life-cycle cost. Bidders then have to explain the later evidence path, not only offer a circularity narrative.
At Level 2, an architect and cost consultant can compare a retained frame, a new steel frame, a mass-timber option, and a hybrid system through quantities, service-life assumptions, deconstruction potential, carbon, and cost. The result still requires judgment, but the basis is visible.
At handover, a contractor can use Level(s) to protect evidence during substitutions. If material quantities, waste assumptions, and deconstruction claims drift away from procurement records, the report stops describing the building. Level 3 asks what was installed, what changed, what was measured, and what evidence the owner now holds.
Rating-system operators and public authorities can map their methods against Level(s). The Commission’s 2021 publication for assessment and certification schemes frames Level(s) as complementarity, not replacement. A project may still pursue BREEAM, LEED, or DGNB; Level(s) is the EU policy reference point those systems can align with.
Caveats and Open Questions
A lender or taxonomy reviewer may read Level(s) as a translation layer. The Commission’s quick introduction says Level(s) guides part of the technical screening criteria used to identify buildings for sustainable finance. That does not make a project financeable; it gives the loan, bond, or disclosure file cleaner life-cycle evidence.
The main caveat is adoption. Level(s) is voluntary unless a scheme, authority, procurement brief, or finance process makes it relevant. It also does not solve data interoperability. Teams still need compatible BIM records, product data, material passports, owner systems, and update responsibility.
Consequences
Benefits: Level(s) gives European building teams a common reporting language across carbon, circular materials, water, indoor quality, resilience, and life-cycle value. It converts circularity into indicators for quantities, lifespans, waste routes, adaptability, and deconstruction. It also helps rating schemes, public procurement, finance criteria, and project teams align without one shared certification system.
Liabilities: Level(s) adds reporting work where quantity data, product records, material passports, or procurement controls are weak. It can become paperwork if teams chase indicator compliance instead of improving the design. It also requires boundary discipline: life-cycle stages, units, assumptions, and evidence quality have to be clear.
Related Articles
Sources
- The European Commission’s quick introduction to Level(s) describes Level(s) as an assessment and reporting tool, lists the six macro-objectives and sixteen indicators, and explains the three levels of application.
- The Joint Research Centre’s Level(s) common framework document library publishes User Manual 1, User Manual 2, and the User Manual 3 indicator documents, including the circular-material-life-cycle indicators 2.1 through 2.4.
- European Commission Directorate-General for Environment, Level(s), A common language for building assessment, Publications Office of the European Union, 2021, explains how Level(s) complements assessment and certification schemes in the EU.
- Nicholas Dodd, Shane Donatello, Mauro Cordella, and Catherine De Wolf, Level(s) beta test phase analysis: Identification of horizontal themes and necessary technical updates from user survey feedback, Joint Research Centre, 2021, summarizes the 2018 to 2020 beta testing of Level(s) across registered building projects.
- The European Commission’s Start using Level(s) page points practitioners to the user manuals and explains how the manual set supports project implementation.