Having a solid evidence base on the energy performance of buildings is a pre-requisite for taking meaningful and effective actions to cut energy use, reduce CO2 emissions and renovate the existing stock of some 200 million buildings in Europe. This presentation outlines the process of collecting buildings data across 29 countries and then designing a data portal to enable users from across the world to access key facts and figures, generate bespoke charts and download data for personal use, research and analysis. The portal, launched late in 2012, aims to be the central and freely available knowledge base for all data relating to European building energy performance. To achieve that goal, BPIE has specified an online data collection form to enable easy upload of national building stock information, details of policies affecting buildings and progress with the challenge of renovating Europe’s stock of buildings with a combined area nearly equivalent to the surface area of Belgium. See also: www.buildingsdata.eu.