URBS: Building data at the service of territories and the energy transition

The building, a little-known asset

With over 53 million buildings listed in France, the built heritage represents one of the major challenges of the ecological transition. Yet, public and private stakeholders often lack the precise and up-to-date data to guide their decisions: which buildings should be renovated as a priority? How can dilapidated co-owned properties be identified before they become points of vulnerability? How can the most vulnerable households be targeted at the level of a specific address?

URBS intervenes precisely on this issue.

A scientific precedence that makes all the difference

The URBS story begins in 2016, when researchers from the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne launched an ambitious project: to build a comprehensive, geolocated database of the entire French building stock. This large-scale scientific and technical challenge was rigorously pursued for two years before the operational deployment of the IMOPE database in 2018—followed by its patent application, confirming the pioneering nature and robustness of the methods developed.

The result of patented compilation methods and predictive models, IMOPE aggregates heterogeneous sources to produce a unified, reliable, and actionable view of the 53 million buildings across France, down to the individual address level. Where others compile, URBS structures, documents, and validates. Nearly ten years after its initial work, the company benefits from a data repository enriched year after year, methodological expertise proven in the field and validated by scientific peers, and solid institutional recognition that has made it the industry leader.

The ONB (National Building Observatory) platform allows local authorities, social housing providers, energy and construction stakeholders, and real estate professionals to access this data for practical uses: targeting renovation campaigns, identifying areas of energy poverty, conducting feasibility studies, and guiding public housing policies. Beyond analytical applications, URBS data constitutes a fundamental building block for the construction of territorial digital twins: by providing a comprehensive, reliable, and up-to-date building database, IMOPE offers the foundation upon which territories can build an accurate and operational digital representation of their building stock.

IMOPE 2026 and EMMA: a constantly evolving base

URBS's strength also lies in its ability to maintain and enrich its data over time. The new IMOPE 2026 edition, currently being rolled out, incorporates updated data from sources including the General Agricultural Census (RGA), climate data, and data on exposure to natural hazards—clay shrinkage and swelling, flooding, and exposure to urban heat—as well as new predictive models, including an updated Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) at the address level. This enables both public and private stakeholders not only to manage renovation projects but also to assess and mitigate the risks to a real estate portfolio in the face of future climate hazards.

It is within this context that the EMMA module was launched, introducing a layer of socio-economic data at the address level: household composition, estimated income, and demographic characteristics. This unprecedented level of granularity allows operators to precisely identify households eligible for renovation grants or at risk of energy poverty. Initial pilot deployments, combining IMOPE and EMMA, demonstrate this: contact rates in awareness campaigns have doubled thanks to this refined targeting—for example, increasing from 30% to 53% in Besançon as part of initiatives to combat energy poverty.

More than 80 territories that trust data

Metropolitan areas like Strasbourg, Aix-Marseille-Provence, Lille, and Dijon; departments like Isère and Loire; regions like Bourgogne-Franche-Comté; and urban planning agencies like AURH, AUD, and AULA: the list of territories relying on IMOPE and ONB to guide their renovation and development strategies continues to grow. More than 80 local authorities and territorial bodies now trust URBS—a widespread and long-term adoption that now extends to the highest institutional levels.

ANAH and CEREMA are among the institutional partners who trust them. And more recently, the DHUP (Ministry of Housing) and the FNCCR (ACTEE) entrusted URBS with the production of the national database of public tertiary buildings.

Multiple marks of trust that recognize not only the scientific quality and robustness of the company's products, but also the quality of support and the responsiveness of the teams.

As a symbol of this territorial trust, Géo Vendée—a public interest group that unites Vendée's local authorities around shared data—is renewing its partnership with URBS for the third consecutive year, deploying IMOPE as the building backbone of its departmental digital twin. This concrete use case illustrates how high-quality data, shared across a territory, becomes the foundation of collective territorial intelligence. Its Director General attests to this: “A truly excellent collaboration. A reliable and useful database for a growing number of Vendée's local authorities. The feedback from recent months has been extremely positive and encouraging. Data-driven management.”

500 private references: data that permeates the entire building ecosystem

Beyond territories, URBS data - accessible via the ONB platform, the API or customized data deliveries - feeds an ecosystem of more than 500 private actors who have made building data a central component of their products and services.

In the energy and renovation sector, companies like Kelvin, Argile, and Homeserve rely on URBS data via its API. IDEX, Pouget Consultant, and La Poste Solutions Business are also among its long-standing partners.

Beyond renovation, URBS building data also addresses risk management issues: banks, insurers and real estate asset managers use it to assess the exposure of their portfolio to climate and energy risks, and to anticipate depreciations linked to thermal downgrading or natural hazards.

Many consulting firms also rely on IMOPE and ONB depending on their areas of expertise: supporting public renovation policies, conducting technical and energy studies, or preparing and optimizing Energy Savings Certificates (CEE) funding applications. Real estate diagnosticians complete this ecosystem, integrating URBS building data into their on-site assessment processes.

This diversity of uses confirms the cross-cutting value of building data: whether it is prospecting, analyzing, advising, de-risking or managing, IMOPE and ONB are establishing themselves as a reference infrastructure for all professionals in the built environment.

Presence at the ConstructionTech Village, by Digital Twin | BIM World Paris 2026

URBS will be present at the ConstructionTech Village, by Digital Twin | BIM World, on April 1st and 2nd, 2026 at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles. The event, organized with the support of Action21.fr, brings together 60 startups, institutions and major players in the construction industry to discuss the challenges of the sector's digital transformation.

This will be an opportunity to discover URBS data, the ONB platform, and to discuss with the teams the practical applications of building data for energy renovation, land-use planning, and housing policy development. At a time when the digital twin is emerging as the territorial management tool of tomorrow, URBS is positioning itself as the provider of the essential building reference data for its creation – a conviction that the team will be happy to share and illustrate during the event.