Who benefits from smart buildings?

Smart buildings benefit everyone. From architects to end-users, occupants to the services within a building. Smart buildings can be essential for preventative maintenance, ensuring compliance is maintained, and they can have a massively positive massive impact on making cities more sustainable and environmentally friendly. 

Environmental impact

Smart buildings can reduce carbon footprints through a reduction in energy use. ‘Buildings account for about 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions… the UN Climate Action Summit in September 2019 announced a ‘Zero-Carbon Buildings for All’ initiative aimed at decarbonising all new buildings by 2020 and all existing buildings by 2050’ (HSBC 2020).

Awareness around embodied carbon is growing. ‘The buildings and construction sector accounted for 36% of final energy use and 39% of energy and process-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2018, 11% of which resulted from manufacturing building materials and products such as steel, cement and glass’ (IEA 2019). However, smart technologies, such as SmartCore, can also make old buildings smart; more people are adapting and upgrading their current building instead of building a new one. This reduces the carbon incurred within the construction process and further reduces energy usage within the building.

Cities cover 3% of the earth’s land surface, yet they are responsible for more than 70% of all carbon emissions (World Economic Forum 2021). Ultimately, smart buildings can create a smart city; small collective efforts can lead to huge results. Software, automated sensors and innovative materials are being used to boost the energy efficiency of everything from heating and lighting to security systems. The government's new target will see the UK try to cut CO2 emissions by 68% by 2030 (City AM 2020)

It is reported that new smart systems can deliver energy savings of up to 25% (HSBC 2020).

SmartCore reduces energy usage by providing improved insight - data captured via virtual and physical sensors converge into one user-friendly dashboard. Data from various other devices and systems can also be collected this then available to be packaged and sent to the cloud or a third-party analytics platform. These data insights allow building and facility manager to make quick value judgements that improve the overall performance of their building.

Key stakeholders

Many key stakeholders within the smart building ecosystem benefit from smart buildings and smart technologies.

Architects and Designs

Architects and Designers often work towards a client brief, however as demand for smart buildings increase, some end-users themselves are specifying the kind of building they want and the capabilities it has.

In general, smart buildings provide Architects and Designers with more creative potential than they have ever had before in traditional buildings. Buildings are no longer be bricks and mortar. They are intelligent machines that enable occupants to excel in their tasks. Smart solutions integrated with the building and other devices and systems present new opportunities, e.g. smart lighting allows Lighting Designers to create spaces that boost occupant health and wellbeing, increase comfort, and create different zones that boost productivity and help people to relax in breakout areas. Ambient surroundings improve the overall aesthetic and can be quickly and easily changed, allowing spaces to be made more flexible and adaptable, e.g., a staff canteen could also double up as an events area, smart technology can help make this a reality seamlessly.

Consulting Engineers

Consulting Engineers' benefit is the new ability to integrate software, hardware, protocols, and systems easily – many smart technologies within a building have an open API and are interoperable. Closed, proprietary systems are dying out.

SmartCore reduces the cost and complexity of the design and the commissioning smart software process that enables smart buildings. Commissioning can also be completed both on and off-site; this allows up to 80% of the building to be set-up before setting foot on-site, dramatically saving time and cost.

Smart technology works with large sensor arrays and IoT systems for optimum building intelligence that allows changes to be easily made in the future.

Main Contractors and M&E Contractors

Smart buildings can benefit Contractors considerably as advanced interoperability allows them to interconnect systems to form a cost-effective and easy to implement network. Solutions such as SmartCore require no complex programming. Therefore, they can be easily installed and changed in the future to accommodate client’s needs.

Lighting OEMs

Within smart buildings, lighting is often an aspect that is overlooked; people don’t realise the full potential. SmartCore can integrate with Lighting OEMs to offer them the ability to make their hardware smart, offer advanced control, a user-friendly interface, and many other features such as cloud connectivity, data capture, smart scheduling and circadian lighting, which future proofs their products. In addition, the protocol-agnostic software ensures connectivity is seamless with the rest of the building.

BMS

Building Management Systems were often viewed as a route to make a building intelligent; with the addition of an interoperable solution such as SmartCore, it can make a truly smart building. Extra functionality can be added to the system working as complementary solutions to benefit the overall building's health.

Energy Consultants

As mentioned above, smart buildings and smart technology hold the power to create more environmentally friendly cities, which help meet the need for the UK’s target to cut CO2 emissions by 68% by 2030.

Converged data, virtual and physical sensors, along with easy control, allow Energy Consultants to ensure a smart building is operated as a lean machine and energy waste is kept to a minimum.

Smart technology is also compatible with renewable energy sources.

Facility Management Companies

Smart buildings ultimately make a Facility Manager job easier; they are presented with all of the stats about the building’s health and operation so that quick value judgments can be made. Managers can control the building both on and off-site, and cloud connectivity allows all converged data to be stored off-site for safety.

End-Users

For end-users and building occupants, one of the main benefits of a smart building is improving their health and wellbeing – it prioritises the need for air quality, healthy lighting, and spaces that adapt to their demands. ‘People are no longer getting the ‘2 pm headache’ – which traditionally arises from poor air quality and bad lighting, causing people to feel lethargic and unwell by the end of the day (Woodward 2021 – read full interview here). Human-centric circadian lighting supports occupants natural sleep/wake cycle, which results in many benefits.

Another benefit is the flexibility and cost-effective nature of many smart technologies; e.g., SmartCore can be installed with ease. No rules-based programming is required to make the installing much quicker and changes easy to make in the future space adaptability; this can also benefit future occupants of a building.

Smart buildings also benefit the end-user from a CSR perspective: ‘Redirecting energy spend to building efficiency has allowed some corporate decision-makers to gain the reputational advantages of doing the right thing by the environment while also gaining significant performance and productivity improvements (Building Design and Construction 2013).

Smart Functionality

A smart building allows for smart functionality; it is interoperable, creating a cohesive network between all devices, systems and services within a building. AI can be integrated for predictive energy optimisation, preventative maintenance and fault detection, and improving occupant comfort.

One way improved occupant comfort can be achieved is through personalisation whereby rooms and devices react to your needs, e.g. when you walk in your building, sensors will detect that it is you by picking up data from a pass or smart device, this will automatically add you to the on-site register, a notification will ping up on your phone to indicate which meeting room you will be in today, when you get to the meeting room your phone will ask if you want a coffee, and then make one so all you need to do is pick it up from the machine. The room booking register will be notified that the meeting has started, the HVAC system will kick in if the temperate goes above a certain point, voice activation can command the TV to turn on, and ‘presentation mode’ can cause the blinds to close. The lights to dim down…the possibilities are endless.

Touchless technology will also increase within buildings - motion, voice or smartphone commands will allow lifts to be called and the floor to be selected; this will make environments more hygienic and efficient.

As mentioned above, preventative maintenance allows building and facility managers to act ahead of time, solving a maintenance issue before it occurs. A smart sensor installed within devices will alert a centralised system when something is approaching the end of life, requires some attention or is due to a compliance test. All test data can then be stored for future reference and audits.

Smart scheduling allows automated events to occur based on predefined rules; this can also aid with improved energy efficiency. E.g., in the SmartCore solution, a building can be told to go into ‘night time mode’ after 6 pm if no one is present; this will cause all of the lights to dim down or turn off completely. However, sensors can also detect presents and turn on a whole pathway when needed, meaning an occupant isn’t walking into darkness.

To find out more about Smart Buildings, follow our interview series on YouTube. Recent interviews include:

·        Roger Woodward, Smart Buildings Consultant - Click to watch

·        Jack Martin, MD of Smartech - Click to watch