Germany – Design and execution of research and development – Forschungsvorhaben Liegenschafts- und Klimaschutzdaten für Sozialimmobilien (LuKS)

The Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS) is tendering a research project entitled “Property and Climate Protection Data for Social Real Estate”. The aim is to collect nationwide data on the building stock of social service providers within the BMAS's area of responsibility, estimate the financing needs for investments, and analyse practical administrative hurdles. Social service providers have a very large building stock, which they often describe as outdated and in urgent need of renovation. The legally anchored climate goal of net greenhouse gas neutrality by 2045 requires these buildings to be renovated by then so that they no longer emit CO2. In addition, the new Building Modernisation Act sets minimum efficiency standards for non-residential buildings, which must also be complied with. Finally, these buildings, in which particularly vulnerable groups often stay for longer periods, must be fortified against the consequences of climate change and, in particular, against heat. To date, there are no sufficiently robust data available in a consolidated form – also due to the lack of a comprehensive building register – on the condition of buildings and renovation rates. It is not clear how many buildings there are, how large and how old they are, when they were last comprehensively renovated, what type of heating is used, and whether the building is rented or owned by the users. The aim of the research project is to close these gaps for the BMAS's area of responsibility and to derive a financial need for investments from this. In addition to a lack of information on the scope of the renovation and adaptation needs, there is a lack of knowledge about which specific hurdles and challenges exist with regard to the administration and financing of renovations. Therefore, the question of how cost bearers assess the cost-effectiveness of different investment measures of social service providers in practice and which measures can be implemented with them should also be addressed. In a final step, a concept for the permanent establishment of data collection is to be presented in order to be able to monitor the progress of renovations in the future. The German Bundestag has called on the Federal Government to improve the data and information base with regard to the aforementioned issues. An appropriate and efficient methodology is to be proposed by the contractor. Various approaches seem conceivable, such as representative quantitative and qualitative surveys among social service providers and cost bearers, but also approaches using automated geobased data collection (e.g. building twins based on official data). The project is to commence directly after the award of the contract (scheduled for April 2027) and the final results of the research project are to be available no later than 14 months thereafter. Please note the attached tender documents.