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Did you know the building and construction industry takes up 36% of global final energy use? At a time when climate change and global warming can no longer be ignored, we must turn this fact into something positive. Since buildings like offices, schools, hospitals, malls and so on account for such a big part of urbanization, there is a tremendous opportunity: making buildings smarter, improving building energy efficiency and thus dramatically lowering the energy and carbon footprint of a city. 

Building by building can be constructed or updated with innovative technology, each and every one of them making their impact on climate change. How? By using smart building technology that connects to the lighting, heating and cooling in the buildings and ensures energy is only consumed when needed.  

Why not take it a step further? Use intelligent building software like ICONICS to schedule preventive maintenance, automatically identify and prioritise issues and keep improving buildings when it comes to comfort and energy efficiency. You can start small and scale as you’re reaping the benefits of implementing smart technology. 

A prime use case of smart building technology can be found at Microsoft headquarters, where energy usage was cut by 22% after implementing ICONICS software. This not only had tremendous impact on the environment, but also resulted in saving millions of dollars annually. 

Microsoft used ICONICS to develop some type of “analytical blanket” connecting 30,000 pieces of equipment and various building management systems across 125 buildings. By enabling all these pieces and systems to talk to each other and visualising them in powerful dashboards, building managers got valuable insights into their building energy consumption. All this data could easily be shared with decision makers and thus influence important decisions. 

“The net result of the 88 Acres project was that it led to a really hyper-scalable project that could be deployed across buildings and cities,” says Daniel Lee, Senior Program Manager for digital transformation at Microsoft. “Microsoft has expanded its smart building program to more than 300 buildings across several campuses. With other efficiencies, we were able to reduce power usage from 59 megawatts of power, which is a small power plant, to 43 megawatts. That’s a 22 percent power reduction which saves millions of dollars annually.” 

This Microsoft project proves that smart building technology can not only play a vital role in fighting climate change, but also serves as a gigantic cost-cutting solution. This makes the decision to move towards sustainable energy saving solutions not only environmentally friendly, but also economically interesting. Win-win.

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Koning & Hartman Belgium advises and supports your smart building projects using the ICONICS intelligent building software. With our years of experience and know-how, we help companies transition to a smarter and sustainable future.