The importance of the building and construction sector in society cannot be overestimated. It is globally the major industry sector, a main contributor to gross domestic products, a dominant employer, and the main consumer of material resources and energy. The environmental impact of constructing, running and demolishing the built environment is huge. The products of construction are normally long-lived works, crucial for social and economic development, and for improving the living environment. Buildings and infrastructures are subject to changes over time, in performance as well as in expectations. Renovation, re-build, and refurbishment is a major part, in many nations periodically dominating, of building and construction activities. All existing materials meet and are expected to efficiently co-act in the resulting buildings and civil engineering works. It is well known that the value chain in building and construction is complex, and the sector is in all nations dominated by very to extremely small companies. Few industrial sectors are in such need of standards and standardized approaches to support efficient processes and to ease trade of products and services. This is underlined by ever increasing sustainability requirements, e.g. energy efficiency in building concepts, ambitions to reduced resource consumption in building and construction, and to decrease emissions of green-house gases and negative climate effects. Building and construction is in addition largely a scene for political ambitions and economic control mechanisms, good and bad. This key-note contribution to the IRG annual meeting 2017 in Ghent gives an overview of theories and principles of service life prediction and planning in building and construction, and the resulting international and regional standards. The European regulatory work as a driving force is addressed. The international durability conferences, the DBMC´s, have over the years functioned as invaluable platforms for communication and scrutiny of ideas and research results and by that also strengthened the international standardisation work. The contribution will reflect why so is the case, and on some of the mechanisms.

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