Behind the data: building trusted building intelligence for Ireland

What does it take to build reliable building intelligence for an entire country? As CFP expands its footprint into Ireland, the challenge goes far beyond collecting data. It means translating regulations, energy ratings, local building characteristics and international reporting standards into insights that banks, investors, public authorities and building owners can trust. This is the story behind Ireland’s digital building model.

Why Ireland? 

When CFP Green Buildings expands into a new country, the work starts long before the first client logs into the Green Buildings Tool. Adding a country is not simply a matter of collecting building data. To provide meaningful insights, CFP must model each market around its own regulations, energy performance standards, climate conditions, energy prices, building characteristics and renovation costs. Only then can banks, investors, public authorities and building owners make reliable decisions based on the results. 

Ireland is a strong example of that challenge. With approximately 2.3 million homes and buildings, ambitious sustainability targets and a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape, the country has a clear need for building-level insight. Reliable data can help identify where improvements are most needed, reduce carbon emissions and support more resilient decisions across the built environment. 

It starts with regulation, risk and value 

According to Bram Adema, Founder and CEO of CFP Green Buildings, the starting point is not the data itself. “It is not that we bring data to a country. It starts with regulation, risk and value.” Countries where CFP operates typically have strong foundations for sustainable real estate. Property data is available, banks finance real estate, reporting obligations are in place and regulators increasingly require transparency around climate-related risks. 

Ireland fits that profile. The country has ambitious sustainability goals, an active energy authority in SEAI, financial institutions that need to understand climate risks within their portfolios, and a real estate sector with significant potential for improvement. 

Improving buildings is about much more than energy efficiency alone. Lower energy demand often goes hand in hand with lower carbon emissions, better indoor environments, improved building quality and longer asset lifecycles. As buildings become more sustainable, they can also become more resilient, increase in asset value and are better prepared for future regulations. That creates benefits not only for the environment, but also for owners, lenders and society as a whole.

For CFP, entering a new country therefore starts with a simple question: what local context must be understood before any building-level recommendation can be trusted? 

Building a country from the ground up 

Creating reliable building intelligence requires much more than mapping building addresses. For every country, CFP develops a local model that combines energy regulations, emissions factors, investment costs, energy prices and climate data. These inputs feed into the models and algorithms behind the Green Buildings Tool, allowing it to estimate building performance, compare improvement options and identify practical renovation opportunities. 

Ireland required two different modelling approaches, specific to their regulated ratings (BERs).

Residential buildings 

For residential buildings, CFP was able to work with a large dataset containing approximately one million housing records and BER (Building Energy Rating) information. By analysing this data, CFP developed statistical models that show how building characteristics influence energy performance and which factors are most likely to affect a home’s rating. 

This provides a robust foundation for estimating energy performance and the impact of renovation measures across large residential portfolios. 

Commercial buildings 

Commercial real estate presented a different challenge. Unlike the residential sector, comprehensive building-level datasets are less readily available in Ireland, which means CFP had to rely more heavily on methodology, typologies and simulation to estimate performance where certified data is missing. 

To address this, CFP modelled the official BER methodology itself, using software, building typologies and simulations to understand how different measures affect building performance. This allows the Green Buildings Tool to estimate potential ratings and improvement paths for commercial buildings that do not yet have a BER certificate. These insights are indicative, but they provide owners and lenders a practical starting point for prioritising action when certified data is not yet available. 

Validation, local expertise and global standards 

Building a model is one thing. Proving that it reflects reality is another. That is why validation plays a crucial role throughout the development process. CFP combines national datasets, regulations and building performance methodologies with local market expertise to ensure that outcomes reflect real-world conditions. 

In Ireland, CFP works closely with local organisations and industry experts to validate assumptions, costs and methodologies. Sustainability Works supports CFP with local market expertise and relationships across the Irish real estate and financial sectors. Discussions with market participants, such as SEAI, financial institutions and real estate professionals, also help test whether the outcomes reflect practical reality rather than theoretical assumptions. 

Local validation is essential because Irish building performance cannot be understood through international assumptions alone. The model needs to reflect how Irish buildings are constructed, financed, regulated and upgraded in practice. 

This local validation is particularly important because building performance is heavily influenced by regional differences. Construction methods, energy systems, regulations and climate conditions can vary significantly from one country to another.

Balancing local precision with global consistency 

While each country’s building stock is unique, financial institutions increasingly operate across borders and require consistent reporting methodologies. Metrics such as energy consumption, carbon emissions and financed emissions must therefore remain comparable across portfolios, regardless of location. 

According to Adema, striking the right balance between local precision and global consistency is essential. 

By combining international frameworks such as PCAF and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol with country-specific data and expertise, CFP ensures that building-level insights remain both locally relevant and globally comparable. This allows banks, investors and policymakers to make decisions with confidence, whether they are assessing a single building or an international portfolio. 

For example, a bank can use this intelligence to identify which buildings in a portfolio are most exposed to transition risk, which assets have the strongest renovation potential and where green lending could have the greatest impact. 

From building data to better decisions 

One of the most common misconceptions about building data is that it must be perfect before it can be useful. In reality, the Green Buildings Tool is designed to support decision-making. For property owners, that means understanding which measures can improve a building’s energy performance, reduce carbon emissions and increase value. For banks, it means identifying risks, prioritising financing opportunities and gaining insight into the sustainability performance of entire portfolios. 

The value of building intelligence is not only in the data itself. It is in helping organisations decide where to act first, which investments make sense and how those decisions can be scaled across a portfolio. Rather than relying on high-level averages, the Green Buildings Tool provides building-level insights that help organisations make informed decisions at scale. 

Building confidence at scale 

Ireland shows that reliable building intelligence cannot be created through datasets alone. It depends on local expertise, validated methodologies, and internationally recognised standards working together. By combining these elements, CFP helps property owners, financial institutions and policymakers gain reliable insight into the performance, risks and opportunities within the built environment. 

Better decisions start with better data. And better data starts with understanding the local reality behind every building.