European countries have witnessed the rising issue of ageing population and thus the level of awareness globally grows. Our living environments have a key role in enabling older citizens to stay active and participate in society and to have a full role in the community.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO, 20171), housing is one of the three pillars composing age-friendly environments, along with accessible outdoor environments, transport and mobility. The impact that our homes can have on our health and wellbeing is also something well acknowledged.

Considering this context Homes4Life project has the objective to overcome those barriers by the development of a European certification scheme for age-friendly buildings and neighbourhoods ready for wide-spread adoption by a dedicated community of lead users.

This functional brief is the document that formalizes the need of the Homes4Life certification scheme around Age Friendly Housing, and it details the expected functionalities of the certification scheme as well as the constraints (technical, regulatory, …) it will have to face.

It also synthetizes the work done in T2.4(Working Taxonomy) and complements it with the results from the analysis conducted in Task 3.1(Analytical KPI Framework) and Task 3.2 (Analysis certification schemes). This document settles the basis for the development of the Homes4Life Certification Scheme in Work Package 4: Certification Scheme of Homes4Life model.

The functional brief includes the approach to the Certification Scheme, considering the benefits for the end-user, the context where it will be developed, and the limits found in the existing schemes.

It also establishes the scope and the principles of the future H4L certification scheme, detailing its future clients, the kind of building typologies that will be certified, the phases of the building where it will be evaluated, the indicators that will be analysed and finally a first approach to the assessment system and to the scoring method that will be used.

The process to follow to achieve the development of the Homes4Life Certification Scheme and the phasing of the process are sketched giving a first idea of the future definition of the Homes4Life Certification Scheme that will be totally defined, tested and developed during the next twelve months of the project.