Smart Buildings: What’s meaningful and what’s just buzzwords and hype?

Mark Bouldin, Clean Air Expert, Johnson Controls UK&I

When it comes to smart buildings, the popular management saying ‘you can’t manage what you can’t measure’ is particularly apt. Smart buildings have been heralded as the solution to myriad challenges, from driving cost efficiency and meeting sustainability goals through to heightening user experiences in the spaces we occupy in a post-pandemic world.

The potential for smart buildings is breathtaking, and the case for incorporating technology into buildings to enable a range of efficiencies and experiences has been made time and again. However, without evidence of the true impact of these technologies, investment is hard to justify. Without independent benchmarking that demonstrates how these technologies deliver on their promises, attractive claims are reduced to mere buzzwords.

Nowadays, data-driven decision making is a strategic focus in the most boardrooms. The value of evidentiary, data-led insight is clear for the C-Suite, but this does not always cascade across the whole business. However, with the shift in the corporate agenda to encompass radical sustainability goals, alongside a pandemic-induced change in working practices, the future of buildings and estate management is becoming a boardroom priority.

Any organisation truly invested in realising the benefits of smart buildings should be concerned with ensuring that impact can be measured and benchmarked accurately and independently. For building owners navigating a highly competitive market, setting their facilities apart also requires evidence. That is where a new cross-industry initiative closes the loop between promise and delivery. Providing a global standard, SmartScore identifies best in class smart buildings that deliver an exceptional user experience, drive cost efficiency, meet high sustainability standards, and are fully future-proof.

What really constitutes a smart building?

We know that accelerating the arrival of future fit buildings means digital transformation that effectively uses the data that buildings generate to drive comfort, security and sustainability. However, it’s vital to define what the industry understands by a ‘smart’ building. We need to get behind the buzzword. According to SmartScore there are six facets to realising a truly smart building.

1. Individual and collaborative productivity

Building users are ever-more demanding, and they rightly expect greater levels of flexibility, responsiveness and comfort. That means creating spaces that enable people to be at their most efficient and effective. Next-generation smart buildings unlock new possibilities for how building occupants interact with their environment – no matter their requirements.

2. Health and wellbeing

Smart building infrastructure should be sustainable for the wider world and ensure improved health and well-being for occupants. Everything from air quality to temperature and lighting can be optimised for elevated user experience. For example, in the age of COVID, smart building design can utilise clear air technology to ensure safe, ventilated spaces. Given the average person spends 90% of their day indoors, indoor air must be clean and healthy.

3. Communities and services

Placing community, services, and information into the hands of users. Many buildings house multiple tenants, with various needs that are subject to flux at any time. Smart buildings can provide communities with adaptable, flexible, and responsive services.

4. Sustainability

Buildings are responsible for a staggering 40% of global emissions. It means that bringing this number down at speed is hugely dependent on how buildings are used and managed. By 2030 buildings must demonstrate an EPC B rating, with the average for rented commercial property currently sitting at D. Most corporations have promised shareholders they will reach net-zero by 2030. We are just eight years away from this target date.

A smart building uses data generated by IoT-enabled equipment and data gleaned from external sources to allow performance-enhancing, energy-saving decision-making. Digitalisation, decarbonisation and renewable energy goals go hand-in-hand. Without digital technology, organisations cannot implement zero-carbon and renewable energy goals for their facilities.

5. Maintenance and operations

Next-generation smart buildings are enabled by artificial intelligence and IoT (Internet of Things), helping facilities managers discover insights, find efficiencies, and create other sources of value. Smart infrastructure provides greater resilience and longer lifespans, requiring fewer energy-consuming upgrades and retrofits.

6. Security

Smart buildings must be designed on a foundation of security, especially to stand a chance of protecting against surging rates of cybercrime. Data-driven services can only succeed with the utmost security.

Realising the smart building promise

The use of smart technologies for future-proof building management has the potential to deliver wide-ranging benefits. However, it is not a single installation that leads to success. Smart building strategies require continual monitoring and improvement to realise the long-term benefits. This process is underpinned by the ability to access technologies, experts and partners who abide by the principles and standards that underpin truly smart buildings. A smart building owner knows that demonstrating this value means providing evidence of impact based on data. Those who move early and quickly with this data will have an advantageous position in the market. This isn’t something that can be achieved without reference to an ecosystem of expertise that understands and is entrenched in delivering the six facets described above.

None of this can be achieved without measurement. Data-driven decision making for building management must become the norm and the need for a standard metric to measure smart building impact has been clear for a number of years. ‘Smart’ cannot be understood without reference to benchmarking and regular measurement and that’s where SmartScore is delivering much-needed clarity.

With SmartScore providing a global standard, separating the impactful innovators of smart building technologies from purveyors of empty promises, realising a better future for your buildings is set to become a whole lot easier.