Are Smart Cities The Next Piece In The Climate Puzzle?
The move to build smart spaces could help mitigate climate change risks.
Imagine it’s your first day at work. You reach the office building but there’s something different. A notification on your smartphone guides you to your floor and your seat. The entry is automated. By the time you reach your desk, your welcome kit and laptop are placed with digital instructions for logging in. There is no need to hunt for a meeting room on your first day because technology has taken care of that. And your lunch break, too, is not spent waiting for an empty space in the canteen. AI will prompt you as soon as a seat is vacant.
This is a building that understands your needs. But the best part? It is a space that isn’t just friendly to you, but also to the environment. It knows when to switch the lights, ACs, and water on, and when to switch them off. This may sound like the office of our dreams. But this is what a smart office looks like. It is where the world is moving.
Smart buildings are the need of the hour. Did you know that our buildings cause 25% of the total CO2 emissions? Consuming energy and emitting greenhouse gases from the construction stage itself, buildings take up 37% of India’s total annual energy consumption.
The biggest worry currently is cutting down on emissions. Net-zero is no longer a pledge made on paper. And this is where smart spaces come in. Smart spaces are interactive settings where technology automates basic functions and monitors energy consumption.
For example, an office building could become a smart space once the technology is integrated into the setting. Entry/exits are automated, water use is monitored and leaks are minimized, electricity functions are mechanized, and all controls are remote. Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence are used to improve building efficiency.
And work has already begun on this front. Mahindra Group’s realty arm Mahindra Lifespace Developers is developing India’s first net-zero energy housing project in Bengaluru. This will be a smart space with green grids to save electricity and water usage.
The energy saved? Over 18 lakh kWh electricity annually, equivalent to powering about 800 homes.
But these buildings aren’t just good for the environment but improve the balance sheet as well. Research from Gartner showed that there is a 30% reduction in operating costs for companies that operate in smart spaces. Here, IoT automates mundane tasks while cutting down the wastage of power and water.
Why Move To ‘Smart’?
Today, the shift to smart spaces has been swiftly initiated across sectors, be it residential, recreational, or commercial. And the global market for these products and services is only set to explode. A BCG report said that the global market for smart spaces will grow from $8.5 billion in 2019 to $19.2 billion by 2024 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.9%.
In India, the IT majors such as Infosys, TCS, Cognizant, and Wipro have taken the lead when it comes to smart space solutions. In fact, Wipro has partnered with Siemens to make workplaces smarter.
Investing in smart spaces is not just valuable from an environment and cost perspective, the employer brand gets built too.
It is abundantly clear that sustainability is the driving force behind these smart workspaces. But, an added fact is that a greener planet and a reduced carbon footprint are subjects close to the millennial hearts. These professionals only want to work with climate-conscious spaces. A 2021 survey showed that 71% of employees and employment seekers termed environmentally sustainable companies as ‘attractive employers’.
Essentially, having a smart workspace is also vital to employee engagement and fulfillment. The world may never go back to the same kind of workspaces post the pandemic. So, it is necessary to make the switch to attract young talent.
While the concept of smart spaces has existed for close to five years per se, it is only now that companies have begun to realize its importance. And, the pandemic accelerated the process.
Beyond The Obvious
Have you been in one of ‘those’ meetings? You sit with 10–15 people in a closed room and have long discussions for hours. After the meeting is over, you feel too tired to do anything else.
Turns out, the exhaustion you felt wasn’t just a figment of your imagination. Crowded meeting rooms cause the circulation of carbon dioxide that makes people tired. But the current office setup doesn’t allow for open spaces to hold meetings or have algorithms to suggest bigger rooms based on the number of attendees.
That’s exactly where having a smart space will be beneficial, simply because IoT makes the decision-making process easier.
EDGE Olympic in Amsterdam serves as a good example of smart building architecture. The building is based on a digital infrastructure that connects everything and everyone within its walls to a single cloud platform. A smartphone application lets users personalize their workplace, including the lighting and temperature. And there is continuous monitoring of air quality and noise levels. It also lets users access the building, quickly locate their colleagues, and find available meeting rooms or workplaces.
The best part? Visitors neither waste time looking for available spaces nor do they utilize additional electricity waiting for meeting rooms to get vacant.
Apart from the obvious climate benefits, smart spaces also offer ease of doing business, improve productivity, and increase workplace efficiency.
For emergencies too, the intelligent sensors enable a quick warning system. This could be electricity tripping, fire, or even water leaks. Early detection also helps prevent costly repairs and temporary closures. So the use cases extend far beyond the environmental benefits.
A building’s ‘Digital Twin’ helps make these predictions. This is a virtual representation of a physical structure that uses AI and IoT to predict ‘what if’ scenarios. Based on past user data, the technology analyses multiple situations and keeps backup plans for possible failures.
Since it is digital, the facility manager doesn’t even have to be present in the building to respond to a crisis.
The Real Cost Advantage
We spoke earlier about our buildings consuming tons of energy. But it turns out that most of that energy is simply getting wasted.
Lights stay switched on for hours in meeting rooms, water dripping from taps unnoticed, or even unoccupied computers powered on for months with no monitoring. All this can be avoided if smart spaces were to be widely adopted.
Picture this. By just changing the way buildings control their cooling, heating, lighting, and appliances through smart energy analytics, a four-year initiative by Berkeley Lab saved $95 million per year in energy costs across 6,500 buildings in 2020.
These savings were possible thanks to the energy management and information systems (EMIS). Berkeley Lab estimates that if buildings throughout the commercial sector adopted EMIS, close to $4 billion in annual energy costs would be saved.
Indian companies need to take notice too. Smarter buildings embedded with IoT help save costs in the long term. Offering energy efficiencies, reducing administrative staffing, and providing predictive analysis, the technology brings down the cost of running the building.
Now, the most important question. What will it cost to make a building smarter? Estimates suggest that adding IoT-based control systems will cost just $0.75 per square foot of additional costs. A study showed that even though the initial costs are higher by 25% for building a smart building from scratch, energy costs are reduced by 35% annually.
Take the Empire State Building’s green retrofit for instance. The upgrades to optimize heating and reduce electricity loss cost a little over $31 million in 2010. But this helped cut energy consumption by 40%, saving over $4 million every year.
In the near future, these green design changes aren’t just ‘good to have’ but will also be critical in attracting high-value clients to buy/rent property in commercial spaces. The same holds true for residential buildings as well.
Planned Expansion For The Future
Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) regulations have been tightened across the world. Considering that a majority of Indian companies have a presence in the US and Europe, there is no other alternative than to switch to smart. Stringent requirements around emissions make eco-friendly buildings an essential component to move toward sustainable living.
Governments in India and elsewhere have taken baby steps towards this goal. The Indian government has committed to net-zero carbon emissions by 2070. Reducing CO2 emissions and switching to renewable energy is part of the strategy. In addition, the government has already highlighted the value of constructing energy-efficient buildings to mitigate climate change.
But this can’t be driven by the government alone. Private partners will play a crucial role in this plan, especially at a time when India’s energy consumption is rising.
India’s electricity generation target has seen an increase every year, corresponding to the rise in power demand. For 2021–22, the target is 1356 Billion Units, a growth of 9.83% over the previous year.
The demand for energy is only going to rise further. And connecting it to the climate risks makes it a potential opportunity for Indian companies to review their building energy usage and opt for smarter sources.
Workplaces, today, can no longer afford to sit idle and ignore the climate. Especially when there is also a clear business opportunity attached to it. If emissions are controlled, the climate improves. And when the climate improves, cities become livable and businesses flourish.
American entrepreneur Jim Rohn said, “Whatever good things we build end up building us.” It couldn’t be truer for smart buildings.
