Abstract
Envelope-for-Service (E4S) is a novel business model developed with the aim of converting the building façade from a traditionally traded good to a combined good plus service agreement scheme. This transformation, duly supported by appropriate business models, is expected to support the evolution of the construction market from linear to circular, engaging several actors along the façade value chain. In E4S actors take responsibility against what happens to the building façade, even many years after they have conceived it, designed it, manufactured it or installed it. This visionary research has been developed jointly between two parties: a globally acknowledged design firm and an applied research institution focusing on energy efficiency. The co-creation process has been developed based on mutual exchanges on project development experiences of the two parties and greatly benefitted from expert interviews, openly sharing perspectives on both strong points and development opportunities along the current façade construction projects value chain. Based on the state-of-the-art, a proposal for the value-chain evolution has been articulated by analyzing the gap between the current façade market, which is strongly trade based, and the most well known as-a-service business models worldwide. As a result, this research detected that a new figure is missing in the value-chain to enable E4S and circularity in facades. This new stakeholder would make profit by exploiting the performance of the façade (energy and comfort wise) during the operational phase, while valorizing second life of façade components. To enable this novel exploitation of façade benefits, a set of performance-based key performance indicators (KPIs) has been defined to support the creation of client service agreements, to build client trust on the process and allow project promoters and financers to measure façade performance and establish pricing based on factual information. KPIs’ definition is still an in-progress work, which will require further investigation to determine analytical processes to allow exact quantification of the façade impact on buildings global energy and non-energy performance.