Think Bigger, Think Smarter: are There any ‘Smart’ Buildings in the UK?

Think Bigger - Think Smarter, by Jamie Cameron, Director of Digital Solutions at Johnson Controls UK & Ireland

In the sphere of technology, ‘smart’ is a term which has been heavily diluted. Smart watches, smart phones, smart lighting: the list goes on. Almost every new gadget and gizmo is labelled smart without any real thought into why it is or isn’t. While on a very different scale, the UK smart building industry is suffering the same fate.

There are many buildings in the UK that have been labelled ‘smart’. The truth is, there are no genuinely smart buildings in the UK. That’s not to say there aren’t any buildings making use of intelligent technologies – but flashy tech is not the beginning and end of smart, and most buildings are not doing enough to justify the ‘smart’ tag.

Owing to the widespread benefits of connected, smart buildings, in London they command a 5% ‘digital premium’, enabling building developers to increase revenue on their spaces. But in such a ‘smart’ world, this is laced with irony. In reality, in the UK, most buildings haven’t even scratched the surface of ‘smart’. In fact, it’s possible that there aren’t any legitimately smart buildings in the UK.

What’s also important to recognise is that people have been working from the comfort of their own home, able to control their own environment, for a year now. Expectations have shifted and building decision-makers have a fight on their hands to convince occupants to return to their buildings and office spaces. Now, our buildings have to feel even better than the competition – they have to feel like home.

The state of smart

Of course, there are buildings with intelligent technologies fitted into them, but the reality is that they’re not being used effectively enough to create a genuinely smart building – one that thinks, responds, and adapts to its occupants’ needs. This disconnect is the result of implementing smart technologies as point solutions. The sum of all these individual parts does not constitute a smart building. To create a truly smart building, which can command even more than a 5% digital premium, we need redefine what we mean by ‘smart’.

We know that smart buildings bring benefits; two-thirds of business leaders recognise that poor connectivity is detrimental to both work-life balance and mental health, and 81% of companies believe that a well-connected office leads to a better performing business. But ‘well-performing’ is starting to mean something new, with Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) concerns now inherently linked to corporate success. To this end, companies are being tasked with the seemingly impossible objective of becoming carbon net-zero. That’s where smart buildings – truly smart ones, that is – come in.

Technologies that we see as smart, like facial recognition on entry, automatic lighting, and app-based temperature control are often seen as ‘enough’ – they wow visitors and do improve employee experience. And ‘smart’ doesn’t need to be confined within the building itself: sensors can be used to gauge the average time people leave the building and provide transport updates, such as transport delays or traffic jams, to optimise employees’ experience even after they leave the building itself. But none of these technologies, smart as they are, are worth the investment if they don’t actually improve how a building is run, or its impact on people, places and the planet.

The real challenge goes far beyond opening doors and turning lights on and off. It’s about tapping into the building to ensure everyone in it can be productive, healthy, and happy, while leveraging every piece of data the building holds to save costs, bring energy usage down, and help achieve ESG goals. That is the moment when a building becomes smart.

From ’smart’ to smart(er)

Right now, the data from each of these point solutions is siloed and disconnected. This is preventing building managers, developers and owners from seeing the bigger picture, limiting them to small, incremental changes that don’t help realise the full potential of their investment in smart.

What’s more, many buildings house multiple tenants, with various needs that are subject to flux at any time. This will become truer than ever as businesses return to offices on a more flexible basis this year. For some tenants, regular heating will be less essential. Others may require less space or see cleaning requirements become more intensive. For others, the opposite may be true. That said, some things will remain consistent: the need to drive down energy usage, move towards carbon net-zero, and provide an impressive and comfortable experience for occupants. All of this is harder to achieve when a building’s data is sitting in siloes, underutilised and unable to provide a 360-degree view of what a building can really offer.

To reach this potential, we have to get deep below the surface level of smart technologies to unlock the insights they generate. This happens when we connect smart technology systems together to create an ecosystem/platform for smart solutions, looking at  the bigger picture. The data and insights this creates can then be analysed to make vast improvements across a building, and even the whole enterprise.

To make this a reality, the data needs to be connected and easily accessible in the cloud. Then decision makers can analyse the data in its entirety and identify areas of improvement. They can focus this analysis on processes such as maintenance, energy savings and sustainable development – wherever needs attention at that time. Then, they can pinpoint the smart technologies that can make these adjustments autonomously and improve the experience that tenants receive. From these foundations, building and office decision makers can create something which is truly smart.

Making it reality

These changes may sound expensive, but they needn’t be. Many buildings already have the technology in place to transform into a genuinely smart building. The key is making sure that the data coming from those devices is connected and presents a bigger picture to anyone who needs it. Then, decision-makers can act on the insights they get to make both widespread and tailored improvements, from ad hoc requests for temperature or security controls, to putting the steps in place to meet ESG goals and achieve net-zero targets in the longer-term.

A 5% digital premium is the tip of the iceberg in terms of benefits. So far, that’s been achieved with buildings that are faux-smart. Imagine what can be achieved – and who can reap the rewards – with buildings which are genuinely smart. Only then will we really be seeing just how smart the UK can be.

Thinking Smart: How the foundations of the UK will be defined by smart buildings

A new report commissioned by Johnson Controls addresses many of the issues raised in this article, including:

What are the benefits of smart buildings? 
With carbon net-zero targets fast approaching, how many buildings in the UK are actually sustainable?
What is the future of smart technology and how will it help businesses to achieve their short, medium and long-term goals?
And, finally, what steps do businesses need to take to create a genuinely smart building?
You can download your free copy of the report using the link below.