This report summarizes 28 case studies addressing the common interest for indicators in case studies in Nordic and Baltic countries and is distributed to different building types

– Benchmarking systems and indicators (4 case studies)

– Offices (7 case studies)

– Housing (8 case studies)

– School and nursery (5 case studies)

– Shopping centres (3 case studies)

– Hospital (1 case studies)

There are some good practices for benchmarking in large scale. At the moment, those are addressing mostly process and investment indicators, and do not yet cover performance indicators. Front-runner enterprises are already recognizing the potential of benchmarking, rating to highest class may increase interest from investors and building owners. Otherwise, some national and international rating systems are available in the market.

Few frontline owners are already using cost and performance indicators in daily operations, such as Senate Properties in Finland and Statsbygg in Norway. Their focus is mostly directed to investment, costs, and energy efficiency. Altogether, it seems that systematic procedures are needed in the industry for evaluating performance and compliance to end result to needs.

There is no commonly agreed or standardized global or European Key Performance Indicator system, but some national and international rating schemes are available. During the past five years a number of rated buildings has grown greatly, and motivation for using those is increasing.

Market signals are also showing paradigm shift towards end user involvement, and standardized methods for involving end users and making continuous monitoring of satisfaction should be agreed. When committing end users, they need help in order to be able to contribute in value adding way. Workplace management in office buildings is used for tailoring spaces better to end user needs. Senate Properties in Finland develops services where spaces are a strategic asset that can help to contribute an organizational change.

National and international indicator systems do not cover all important business matters and companies are developing their own systems. Some contractors have been developing national systems for process performance monitoring. Indoor environment is important in shopping centres, and performance level for spaces is an opportunity to owner to enhance cash flow through rental agreements. In the future, building automation systems could provide real-time monitoring of performance indicators continuously contributing changes automatically to reach desired performance.

Organizations are looking for an indicator system that could help them to measure and enhance performance of buildings. Apparently some indicators are more important than others; regulations for accessibility have become tighter, location is still the core driver, common interest towards operations and reducing annual energy consumptions is growing. There is potential to improve energy efficiency of buildings. Indicator systems should be implemented in tools to encourage usage in projects; those processes are now rather manual. Building Information Models (BIMs) may be suitable tool for managing those more automated way. Based on findings in CREDIT project, offices and shopping centres are most attracting building types in terms of benchmarking.

Enterprises are benchmarking indicators to some extent but systematic process has not yet been developed and a uniform indicator system considering also building performance and value creation is missing. CREDIT project has increased understanding on indicators and transparency and industry needs more research on this matter.