Built to last

The convergence of energy, information and infrastructure is leading a wave of innovation that's set to transform business operations and turn the humble office building into a master of efficiency.

Buildings consume a third of the world's energy, and are responsible for a quarter of global carbon dioxide emissions. With roughly one million people worldwide moving into cities each week, the demand for buildings and energy use is skyrocketing, notes Natasha Roukos, director of smarter buildings at IBM, speaking at last week's GreenBiz Verge virtual conference.

By 2025, buildings will become the single largest consumer of global energy - more than the transportation and industrial sectors combined.

This unchecked urban growth, along with the increasing interconnectivity of data, provides a key opportunity to achieve the planet's sustainability goals while tapping into vast prospects for innovation and business growth, said GreenBiz Group chairman and executive editor, Joel Makower, speaking at the Verge roundtable event.

According to Frost & Sullivan's 2008 'Bright green buildings' report, energy costs represent about 30% of an office building's total operating costs. This provides a massive opportunity for building owners to cut opex and improve their overall environmental performance, the firm adds.

“It is becoming increasingly common for more advanced, intelligent, and green buildings to reduce energy usage by as much as 50% over conventional buildings,” says Frost & Sullivan.

A green building, according to Lloyd Macfarlane, principal at media and events company Alive2Green, does one or both of two things: it's built from sustainable materials and is a star performer when it comes to resource use.

These 'passive' buildings require little outside input in the way of heating, lighting and cooling, and manage the internal energy balance in an efficient, intelligent way.

As organiser of the annual Green Building Conference, Alive2Green's Macfarlane says there's increasing demand for these types of structures, which he attributes to several interlinked factors.

It's like a non-smoking policy. If you don't make it a rule, you leave it up to people themselves to decide.

Brendan Young, Johnson Controls

In addition to greater awareness of environmental pressures, regulatory changes on a global and local level are forcing the construction sector to comply with new policies. “Finally, there's the realisation from building owners and tenants that green buildings are happier places with a higher occupation rate,” he adds.

Brendan Young, director of sales and business management, global energy solutions: Africa, at Johnson Controls, says the cost of energy is a major driver, spurring the demand for energy efficiency solutions.

“It's very easy to make real savings by introducing active technology, such as heat pumps, and passive behaviour such as turning off appliances,” says Young.

Macfarlane adds that while there's definitely greater awareness of sustainable building construction and management, a large degree of uncertainty remains among local companies.

“There's still a big segment out there who don't know about these advances, don't know they can be affordable, or just don't care.”

After decades of cheap, readily available electricity, the recent power crisis has ripped the carpet right out from under many South Africans, says Young. “People are generally confused. They realise something in the energy sustainability and cost equation is not quite right, but they're not sure who's responsible or what their role is in the process.”

Similarly, companies have been thrown into a sea of uncertainty, adds Young, and while many are embracing changes, others struggle to understand the new demands being placed on them.

“The number one concern for most companies is where the capital is going to come from to do what is now assumed as their role. Many are asking what sustainability means, and why this is being cast on them - why does everyone need to be more environmentally conscious and do things more sustainably?”

He says addressing these questions and businesses' new responsibility should be more clearly spelled out by government. ”It's like a non-smoking policy. If you don't make it a rule, you leave it up to people themselves to decide. But if you implement a clear policy then people have to comply with it and find ways of incorporating it into the business.”

While companies are starting to adopt changes and put together sustainability reports, many still approach it as a side concern, he adds. “Companies often appoint an energy efficiency custodian but make it a part of their existing job, so they're tasked with spending 5% of their time each month looking into sustainability initiatives.

“It hasn't struck them that it's never going to end. They still think it's a once-off, minor thing and there needs to be a mindset change so they realise they need a long-term view of energy reduction and efficiency, with an ongoing programme of activities to roll out.”

Young stresses that government needs to take a more active role in encouraging green building development, by incentivising companies for their efforts. He suggests that sustainability reporting would help establish a baseline from which companies could be encouraged to improve. Incentivising the process would mean green building decisions would be driven by the business executive council from the top down.

Frost & Sullivan notes in its 2010 report on the state of green buildings in SA that the development of the market requires commitment from all built environment industry participants, which can be difficult to secure.

“Policy, legislation and incentives are crucial in achieving and sustaining green building initiatives and currently SA suffers from a lack of such supportive structures.”

At last year's Green Building Conference, public works minister Geoff Doidge announced his department is busy developing programmes to support the transition to green buildings. This includes formulating an energy code of conduct, which would govern all national government departments using state-owned and leased buildings.

According to GreenBiz's Makower, while the convergence of energy, information, and building technology is happening organically as technology advances, there's a broader movement taking place.

The development of an interconnected world where IT ties together energy, vehicles and buildings to make them more intelligent is enabling continuing waves of innovation and efficiency, he stated during the Verge event roundtable.

Makower noted that IT is making buildings smarter and more interconnected, creating a larger 'Internet of things' that can increasingly be controlled, optimised and monitored.

“A significant development is that they're producing extraordinarily rich data streams - millions and millions of bits of information every hour and day - that we're starting to learn how to tap into to optimise energy use in ways that ultimately increase the productivity and comfort of people using buildings,” he said.

Frost & Sullivan has coined the term 'bright green' for a building that's both intelligent and takes environmental needs into account. According to the firm, this sustainability powerhouse uses both technology and process to create a safer, healthier environment with timely, integrated system information. Going 'bright green' means owners are able to make intelligent decisions regarding operations and maintenance, and that the building adapts to changing user needs.

IBM's Roukos noted that the benefits of smarter buildings include a 40% reduction in energy consumption, and a 10% to 30% cut in maintenance costs, based on real-life IBM results.

“There are two broad areas companies can approach to reduce energy cost,” says Young. The first is the replacement of aging equipment with new, more efficient versions. “There's a whole basket of innovations that are capable of reducing the typical load by about 20%,” he notes, identifying lighting and heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems as just a few.

“But by far the biggest saving is not in replacing equipment, but behavioural management, such as getting people to switch off lights and appliances.” Energy management and load control has the potential to save almost 50% of a building's energy consumption, says Young.

This is largely by adding intelligence to the system, by ensuring the energy infrastructure inside the building is networked. “In a smart building, all the appliances, printers, chargers, socket outlets, everything, has the potential to be automated,” he explains.

”It allows you to control every light fitting in the building and the way it communicates is similar to the IT network, where the backend system communicates with all peripheral clients.” Appliances use the power network to transfer detailed information about energy consumption in various areas of the building, says Young.

This converged IP network acts as a single communications backbone and enables businesses to run other services such as audio-visual or voice over IP over a single network. It also allows energy management to take place at appliance-level and board-level, for greater flexibility and control.

According to Young, these networks offer a parallel system with a huge amount of capacity and greatly increased speeds of up to 200GBps, as opposed to legacy systems that offer 100MBps.

No matter how smart, fast, or intuitive a system is, however, much of its success depends on the behaviour of a less predictable entity: its users.

“At the rate we're carrying on with energy consumption in SA, if we continue to operate the way we do, if our lifestyles don't change, we will all have to adjust to finding new ways of living,” says Young.

“It's not an option anymore, change is coming.”