Sharing data is essential for real estate to reach its sustainability goals

Sustainability has rapidly risen up the agenda in the last couple of years. It is no longer just a buzzword, most companies acknowledge its impact and many have targets and plans in place to meet them. However, what is often missing at a company level and in particular at a sector level, is the underlying data that we need to achieve the ambitious goals that we must set ourselves.

It is well documented that the built environment is one of, if not the largest contributor to environmental issues. According to UNEP SBCI, the built environment sector consumes up to 40% of the World’s energy and emits up to 30% of global greenhouse emissions.[1] Whatever perspective we take or metric we use, we as a sector have a significant influence over the future of the planet.

Data measuring the performance of our buildings is key to this. Not only those factors that directly influence the environment, but the wider building performance. An environmentally friendly building that is unusable helps no one, so this data is critical in allowing us to understand what we can do to reduce the impact of a building on the planet whilst maintaining a good working or living environment for the users of the building.

We have seen a huge growth in sensors that can be connected to collect ever more data. There are also a wide range of technology providers who are able to help make sense of all this data to provide actionable insights about how to improve the buildings performance. Identification of unreliable systems, inefficient HVAC systems or lighting parts of the building that are not being used can all be identified and modified through the analysis of building data.

So far, so good, but measuring the data in a single building, whilst a good start, is just scratching the surface. To be able to really drive performance improvements, we need to be able to analyse data from several buildings. The more the better. However, real estate has few agreed ways of measuring and sharing data consistently about the environmental performance of a building and without this, we are not able to learn from best practice or benchmark against others. Ultimately, we are missing huge potential efficiency gains.

There are many examples of where data being shared has helped the real estate sector IPD, now part of MSCI, BCIS or the Radius Data Exchange are all examples of industry initiatives to share data for the benefit of all, but up to date energy performance, carbon emissions or other sustainability factors are rarely shared at a market level.

This market wide approach to sharing data will enable two very substantial benefits:

1. Improved insight: The more data we have access to, the more insight we can gain. With access to the data about how hundreds, thousands or even millions of buildings are performing we are able to much better understand what works and what doesn’t. We can benchmark against the rest of the market and we can identify outliers where our building is performing particularly well or badly.
2. Sector level reporting: We have highlighted the importance of the property market on the environment, but how do we demonstrate not only our ambitions and plans, but also the progress that we are making against these over time? Only with standardised market level reporting can we show how we as an overall sector are making an impact.

The property sector must explore how it is able to share data about the environmental performance of buildings, but this raises another issue, one that must be addressed before we can even start down this road.

What do we actually mean by a sustainable building, what data points need to be collected and how do we standardise what good looks like? There are several well-established certification schemes in the market which play a vital role, but if we want to benefit from market level data, do we have a sufficiently granular and consistent view of what data is to be collected and how, so we can gain live and real market level insight? All questions that need answering sooner rather than later in order to help facilitate sustainability data sharing at a market level.

Data sharing presents risks, so we need to have a clear view about what data points provide truly valuable market level insight and which are simply building level competitive advantages. Overall, if sharing data will help the sector improve overall performance and does not present any confidentiality or security issues, we should consider sharing the data for the benefit of all.

In our hands, we hold the opportunity to make a real difference to the planet, but without a sector wide approach to standardising and sharing sustainability data we are unlikely to make anywhere near the improvements that we could otherwise have made and we certainly won’t be able to track or demonstrate what we do achieve.

This article first appeared in EG 1/11/21 and can be accessed here.

[1] https://www.rics.org/es/wbef/megatrends/natural-environment/climate-change-and-the-industrys-response/