100 Factories
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Material
passport
The Material Passport System for Timber Building Blocks, a pioneering initiative by Open Systems Lab, is set to transform how the construction industry tracks and manages timber components. At its heart, this system provides a digital identity for every building block, creating an accountable, traceable, and data-rich profile that addresses the urgent need for transparency, traceability, and environmental responsibility within the sector. Each block is uniquely identified through a QR code, offering a window into both public and private data that can be accessed by authorised users.
Material Passport (MP)
The primary ambition behind the Material Passport System is to enable every stakeholder—whether manufacturer, assembler, owner, or administrator—to follow the lifecycle of each timber block from its creation, through ownership transitions, to its final stages of decommissioning and reuse. It’s a comprehensive digital record that brings transparency, capturing essential information such as carbon footprint, material composition, repair history, and assembly instructions. This centralised approach promotes responsible practices and empowers decision-makers to prioritize sustainability.
How it works
What sets this system apart is its ability to track the carbon footprint of each building block throughout its entire lifecycle. From production to transportation, assembly, and eventual reuse or disposal, the system calculates the environmental impact at each stage, offering insights that help organizations meet their net-zero carbon goals. It provides actionable data that can be used to make more sustainable choices, pushing the construction industry closer to a circular, low-carbon future.
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Each timber block is assigned a unique QR code, which links to a wealth of information that’s both public and private, depending on the user's permissions.
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Information is tiered according to user roles. Public data is accessible to anyone, while sensitive information is restricted to certified users, ensuring a balance between transparency and privacy.
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The system automatically calculates the carbon footprint based on factors like usage, transportation, and lifecycle changes, with the flexibility to manually input data for custom blocks. This feature supports informed decision-making towards net-zero carbon goals.
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The interface is designed to be highly visual, featuring images, maps, timelines, and guides that enhance usability and make it easier for users to navigate and understand the data.
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The application supports both real-time and periodic reporting, with features such as cumulative carbon footprint tracking.
Key features of the material passport system include
Who it’s for
The primary users of the MP web application will be SME manufacturers and installers, who want to manage records of WikiHouse blocks, change their statuses, and add detailed information. Other user groups who might want to access the MP are property or building owners and in some cases the general public, who could scan a QR code to look up key information about a block during the use and end-of-life of a building.
The MP system architecture is designed to support these multiple user roles, secure data access, and modular services for dynamic data handling. It provides secure login and permissions management for different user roles, ensuring that users only access data appropriate to their role. This module underpins the system’s privacy model, restricting sensitive data to authorised users while allowing public access to general information.
Next steps
This is the first step towards building a scalable and secure open-source Material Passport System that can evolve with future needs. We want to ensure the system can integrate with external libraries and tools, supporting long-term innovation and expanding its capabilities beyond just the WikiHouse use-case as the demand for transparent, sustainable construction practices grows. Under the original aims of the research it will be released and available under an open-source license for others to contribute and improve it.
Future features roadmap
3D Views for Detailed Inspection. Include an interactive 3D spatial view of blocks, enhancing understanding of dimensions, shape, and assembly details
Step-by-Step Guides. These guides provide users with structured, actionable steps for completing tasks such as block assembly, installation, maintenance, and end-of-life processing.
Video and Multimedia Integration. Video guides are available for certain processes requiring demonstration, such as decommissioning steps or complex repairs, allowing users to view and follow along.
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