Trends in Building Intelligence: What to Expect in the Year Ahead
Tuesday, 24th January 2023
The pandemic, war in Europe, climate change and an energy crisis—the last year has been one most won’t forget. Almost every part of life was affected, from how we worked to our environmental priorities.
Right now, in the early days of 2023, our workplaces are evolving before our eyes. Hybrid working is now the norm. The workforce is increasingly aware about workplace health. And energy consumption has become a concern like never before.
In response, facilities managers (FMs) are looking to building intelligence for smart, sustainable solutions. In this article, we’ll look back on the hottest building intelligence trends from the past year and discuss what might be top of the agenda for 2023.
What have we learnt so far?
Climate change, the pandemic, and the energy crisis have been our main concerns over the past year. And with hybrid working very much in vogue, 2022 saw many questioning the impact that their places of work were having on climate change and their overall health.
Here’s a rundown of the key lessons that came to the fore:
Buildings contribute significantly to global emissions
In the past, discussions around climate tended to focus on green sources of energy (i.e. alternatives to burning fossil fuels). However, at COP27, we saw a change in focus—that put reducing building emissions first.
John Mandyck, CEO of the Urban Green Council, explained why. If you took a city like New York or London, and made the grid completely renewable, 40% of emissions would be contributed by fossil-fuel-guzzling heating systems in buildings.
We know the workforce of today is concerned about workplace emissions. Nearly half of hybrid workers in both the US and UK said their company isn’t doing enough to reduce its environmental impact, according to a recent Infogrid study. Crucially, respondents in the survey identified building managers as those most responsible for addressing the issue.
That means, if we’re to meet our goals for warming and address the concerns of today’s workforce, we urgently need to focus on increasing the sustainability of the buildings we live and work in.
We’re seeing that urgency reflected in legislation. For example, November 2021 saw the Environmental Act passed into UK law, providing targets for things such as air and water quality and waste management. Also in the UK, those bidding for the largest government contracts will need to demonstrate that they have a specific plan in place to reach net zero by 2050.
2. Retrofitting is key to meeting sustainability targets
You could be forgiven for thinking that the need for sustainable buildings would trigger a wave of new construction projects. But thanks to rising inflation and the threat of recession, many new building projects have been put on hold.
Enter retrofitting, a way to transform older, energy-hungry buildings into sustainable buildings of the future. However, as Dr. Anas Bataw from Heriot-Watt University in Dubai pointed out, skin-deep renovations just aren’t going to cut it. They won’t cut energy costs nor increase sustainability.
That’s where we’ve seen technology—including Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and computer simulation—really make retrofitting effective. Technology can not only help us find the lowest-energy and most sustainable building solutions. But it can provide a live data stream for us to measure, and even predict, a building’s performance and use of resources in real-time.
A great example of this is retrofitting at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, used to automatically monitor humidity and temperature. Thanks to smart technology, facilities managers have been taking a data-led approach, meaning they can stay on top of any issues and make better decisions as to how to best preserve the building for generations to come.
Retrofitting will remain on the agenda into the year ahead. In Dubai, it will be key to the Supreme Council of Energy’s goal to reduce Dubai's energy demand by 30%. In the US, too, funding for retrofitting was part and parcel of the Federal Inflation Reduction Act 2022.
3. Maintaining the health of our buildings is crucial
It’s not just that our buildings are affecting the climate. The changing climate is directly impacting our built environment too. As the Earth warms, extreme weather events are set to become more common, meaning we need to put the infrastructure in place to keep our buildings, and the people that use them, safe.
This threat is being met with exciting innovation. For example, we recently wrote about The Floating Office in Rotterdam, which has been specifically designed to cope with the climate of the future, including mechanisms for coping with power outages and changes in sea level.
In fact, 2022 saw increased awareness about the impact of building health on employee wellbeing. For example, Infogrid’s latest study into employee perspectives on IAQ revealed that 74% of employees in the US, and 53% of employees in the UK, are concerned that poor air quality is impacting their general health.
Awareness of the potential impacts of CO2 is rising too, with 80% of respondents in the US and 60% of respondents in the UK aware of the effects of CO2 on productivity.
4. The workplace has fundamentally changed
The way we work has evolved. Many jobs are now done remotely, with workers only coming into the office part of the time. And this trend in hybrid working is one that’s set to stay.
On the other hand, our research found that rising energy costs actually had the potential to hamper the trend for remote working, with many employees planning to spend more time at work due to the increased cost of heating their homes. Specifically, we found that 74% of respondents in the US, and 70% of respondents in the UK, said they felt concerned about the impact of the energy crisis on the costs of working from home.
The key takeaway? No matter which way you cut it, building occupancy is no longer so predictable. That’s why managers are now looking for ways to keep ahead of the game by carefully targeting power to where and when it’s needed, using data from smart sensors and AI technology.
What can we expect in 2023?
Unsurprisingly, 2023 is likely to bring much of the same: high energy costs and a continued focus on sustainability and workplace health. All of these factors will continue to add pressure on FMs to take action.
Meanwhile, as more and more jobs offer flexible models of working, we’re seeing employees demand more from their workplaces, especially in terms of comfort and health. Although the COVID-19 pandemic is now in the rear-view mirror for many nations globally, the rise of other respiratory infections means workers are looking for continued assurance that their workplaces are putting their health first (in the UK, for example, the UK has experienced its worst flu season in a decade).
But with inflation and energy bills running so high, this might seem challenging for any business to achieve. This is why we think the coming year will bring investment in high-quality building intelligence solutions for the long term—to help lower emissions, save on energy bills and safeguard employee health.
Here are what we expect to see at the top of the agenda for 2023:
Healthier workplaces will be built with the help of smart tech. From our experience, employees won't be looking for cold, mechanical solutions to workplace health. Instead, they’ll want their managers to use data from building intelligence to make smarter, more human decisions.
For example, when the UK’s Met Office engaged with Infogrid’s occupancy monitoring solution, they used the technology to learn which places their staff liked to work best, which helped them find an optimal arrangement of desks.
Retrofitting will benefit from easy-install, flexible and scalable technology. With some predicting recession hitting the US economy in late 2023, many new construction projects are likely to be put on hold.
We expect businesses to look to retrofitting as an alternative solution. Given the diversity of building ages, layouts, and sizes in our towns and cities, any retrofitting solution needs to be up to the job.
‘Green’ legislation and the need for reduced energy consumption will increase demand for intelligent solutions. Tomorrow's world demands powerful, holistic building intelligence, so businesses can lower the energy they use on ventilation, cold storage and legionella compliance.
What’s more, with increasing ESG legislation coming into force, you need to be able to demonstrate your efforts accurately too.
The needs of an ever-evolving, hybrid workforce will be met using IoT sensors and AI. It’s unlikely that workforces around the globe will return to punching in and out, 9 to 5. The way we work has changed, for good.
That means workplaces will need to be more adaptable and target their resources more carefully. To achieve this, businesses will be making more use of occupancy and proximity sensors, such as those provided by Infogrid as part of their Healthy and Sustainable Building Solutions.
Long-term, building intelligence solutions with multiple-use cases and clear ROI. With budgets set to be tight, FMs will be looking for technology that provides the biggest bang for their buck long-term. That’s tech that’s adaptable, that’s designed for multiple use cases, and that promises a great return on investment.
At Infogrid, we’ve created our building solutions for the future. We use best-in-class sensors alongside our proprietary AI platform to help businesses create more efficient and sustainable buildings.
Future-proof your workplace with building intelligence from Infogrid. Get in touch to book a demo today.