Earlier today, the Irish Government approved the Climate Action Bill, which involves committing to Net Zero by 2050. Also, by way of an interim metric, this Bill also commits Ireland to a 50 percent reduction in 2018 carbon levels by the year 2030.
Meanwhile, in the UK, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has launched an open consultation about the possible introduction of a mandatory rating for the energy use of buildings exceeding 999 sqm.
What would a mandatory rating look like?
Building owners, managers and occupiers may well be forced to report on the in-use energy performance on the building under this new government proposal, which is aimed at supporting State initiatives to achieve the target of net zero carbon. If/when passed, this proposal would have a huge impact on the UK commercial property sector, ensuring building performance transparency for building owners, occupiers and, of course, investors.
Under this proposal, building owners and occupiers will be required to provide metered energy use data, confirm floor area size and operational hours of the building on an annual basis, which will result in a rating (out of six stars) that will be displayed in the building and online. This consultation will remain open until June 2021 and the findings are expected to be published in autumn.
In practice, industry leading portfolio managers are already collecting this data for use to drive energy efficiencies and cost savings, as frequently documented through this website, https://standardaccess.co/smart-buildings-solutions-from-standard-access/. Reporting will be straightforward for these early-adapters… but perhaps not for the rest of the industry. Unfortunately, too many companies will only see the onerous implications of reporting on building energy performance. It will become a costly and inefficiently-executed exercise in compliance. Building owners who appreciate the value of data – and who take the effort to leverage it – will recognise the opportunity to enhance the overall offering of the asset.
The Proptech and CREtech conundrum tends to circle back to human behaviour. Technology can and does deliver simple yet powerful solutions to monitor and track everything about a building, from the people and how they behave and move throughout the building, right through to the building management system and every IoT device feeding into it, including the all-important HVAC system. But, with everything that technology can do, a culture shift needs to happen. If this does not happen quickly enough, legislation will be necessary (a real estate variation of the carrot and stick approach!). If the above proposal progresses to legislation, which is likely, this will force the commercial property sector in the UK to decarbonise and will inevitably accelerate efforts to improve energy efficiency towards net zero.
If your asset management team requires help with any aspects of the smart building infrastructure required to enable monitoring of energy performance and a host of other IoT services, contact us at https://standardaccess.co
About Standard Access
Established in 2014 by Damien Browne, Standard Access is a global leader in IoT solutions for smart building access and developer of the Sonic Handshake®, which is a revolutionary Data Over Sound technology to enable building and room access using an encrypted sound byte via app. www.standardaccess.co