The European Union’s Renovation Wave Strategy, announced in October 2020, set out a highly ambitious vision for transforming the region’s building stock. At its core lies the intention not just to improve the energy performance of homes, offices, and public buildings, but to do so in a manner that aligns with the broader objectives of the EU Green Deal. For construction companies—and by extension, their material suppliers—this has triggered a rethinking of supply chain transparency, particularly for emissions-intensive products like cement and steel. As 2021 progressed, this shift became impossible to ignore.
One of the more immediate challenges has been operationalizing these high-level policy goals. It’s one thing to speak of sustainability targets in general terms; it’s quite another to implement processes that can systematically track and report on cradle-to-site emissions. Yet this is precisely what the Renovation Wave’s alignment with the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) now requires. Construction firms are expected to use publicly accessible EED open data to monitor building stock energy performance, yes, but also to map their material inputs against these benchmarks. This means knowing, with as much precision as possible, where one’s cement and steel originate, how they are produced, and the emissions generated en route to the job site.
In practice, this often begins with supplier mapping. Construction companies have had to build or update registries of their primary material providers, layering this information atop the EED’s open datasets. The data itself, covering a wide array of national and regional building performance indicators, offers an essential reference point. By correlating supplier data with these performance benchmarks, companies can begin to assess how their material choices influence overall energy outcomes. The process sounds clean on paper, but it quickly reveals gaps—in supplier disclosures, in national reporting consistency, and, sometimes, in internal data management capacity.
Mapping cradle-to-site emissions is, therefore, both a technical and strategic exercise. The workflow typically starts with cataloging the specific cement and steel products used across renovation projects. From here, companies trace each product back through the supply chain, gathering data on extraction, processing, and transport stages. Some firms have found it necessary to engage directly with smelters or cement kilns to obtain emissions data not otherwise available in public registries. Others have turned to industry consortia, seeking standardized reporting templates to ease the burden of data collection. It would be fair to say that no one method has proven universally sufficient—much depends on the maturity of supplier reporting systems and the regulatory environment in the countries where those suppliers operate.
A further complication comes from aligning emissions data with construction timelines. Cement and steel, by their nature, are sourced and delivered according to project schedules that can shift unpredictably. Tracking emissions in something close to real time is, in this context, as much about workflow discipline as it is about data availability. Some companies have addressed this by embedding emissions tracking into procurement approval processes. Others have layered emissions calculations onto delivery confirmation protocols, ensuring that materials cannot be signed off without accompanying environmental data. These approaches vary in their effectiveness, but each represents a step toward the level of transparency policymakers increasingly expect.
Once this information is assembled, the task turns to reporting. The concept of a “renovation chain” report has emerged as a way to frame these disclosures—essentially a document that traces material inputs, associated emissions, and the measures taken to minimize environmental impact across the lifecycle of a renovation project. Companies producing such reports often find themselves balancing competing priorities. There is, on the one hand, the need to demonstrate compliance with the Green Deal’s objectives. On the other, there is the practical reality of imperfect data, variable supplier engagement, and the challenges of consolidating information from diverse sources. This tension is, in many ways, emblematic of the broader supply chain transparency debate.
Publishing these reports introduces further considerations. Construction companies must decide how much detail to include, how to frame incomplete or estimated data, and how to position their efforts relative to industry peers. The Renovation Wave, by setting ambitious targets without prescribing rigid reporting formats, has left room for interpretation. Some firms have embraced this flexibility, producing highly detailed renovation chain reports that delve deep into emissions data, material choices, and process improvements. Others have taken a more cautious approach, focusing on headline figures and broader strategy narratives rather than granular disclosures. Both approaches have found audiences among regulators, investors, and civil society groups, albeit with differing degrees of scrutiny.
An underlying issue throughout all of this is the interplay between transparency and competitiveness. The construction sector, like many others, is grappling with the reality that greater openness about material sourcing and environmental impact can expose firms to reputational risks—or conversely, provide a competitive edge. Some industry leaders have argued that standardizing emissions reporting across the EU would level the playing field, reducing the burden on individual companies to define their own methodologies. Others worry that excessive standardization could stifle innovation or fail to account for local market conditions. These debates continue to unfold, adding another layer of complexity to what is already a demanding compliance landscape.
Efforts to track cement and steel suppliers via open data are, by necessity, iterative. Companies learn as they go, refining their systems, deepening supplier engagement, and grappling with unforeseen data gaps. The Renovation Wave’s linkage to the broader Green Deal framework ensures that these transparency initiatives will remain central to construction sector strategy for the foreseeable future. As such, building material supply chains are likely to face increasing scrutiny—not just from regulators, but from investors and consumers alike, all eager for evidence that environmental commitments are translating into measurable action.