Building a Future Marked by Practical Sustainability

The world’s buildings are responsible for nearly 40% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Yet organizations were underutilizing 40% of their office space even before the Covid-19 pandemic began. Set against those jarring facts is a movement toward creating more smart buildings and smart cities, which are built around connectivity, accessibility, security, and sustainability.

In our new book, we provide a practical approach to creating and connecting smart spaces, with significant results that can be replicated by others, whether a global enterprise, small company, or government entity. Our organizing principle (and our book title) is what we call “Practical Sustainability.” It is underpinned by continuous environmental, social, and governance innovation based on science, human-centric technology, and regenerative thinking. It is urgent, focused on outcomes, and something to be done now instead of viewed as an abstract concept.

The Five Elements of Practical Sustainability

Regenerative Future: There is a critical need to develop regenerative approaches to sustainability – giving back to the environment instead of taking from and exploiting it.

This shift is already being enabled, thanks to sustainability initiatives that extend beyond the organization. Enterprises can, for example, evaluate their own sustainability goals and those of their partners. Several standards and benchmarks are part of the ESG playbook, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards, and the Healthy Buildings Indexes. These standards and benchmarks can help contribute to sustainable ecosystems, which are needed to ensure livable cities, where people choose to work, live, and raise their families. Cities will ultimately become regenerative through public and private partnerships, seeking to create a strong sense of community and a tax base that attracts and retains businesses, attracting and serving a growing population.

Circular Commerce: This refers to shifts in traditional business models to enable materials and products to be reused and remain in the economy for as long as possible, reducing waste and regenerating natural systems. It seeks to use policy and education to encourage the intentional redesign of products and services for extended use and recirculation of components for the most prolonged viable period. This transition requires a broad combination of business model, technology, and social innovation. For example, in addition to shifting the manufacturing model, financial and consumer habits may also need to adjust. A sustainable product may require more cost or time to produce in exchange for a significantly longer service life. Products may shift, such as office furniture leases instead of sales, with the lessor reupholstering the furniture after a set time and avoiding the need to discard and produce new updated furniture.

Human Experience: Practical Sustainability incorporates smart spaces that sense, adapt, and amplify our experience when we enter a workplace or attend a sporting event. Space optimization is central to maximize the human experience. Use cases range from health, security, privacy, occupancy tracking, and operations optimization – all of which help create a healthy and safe environment for its users, while also contributing to wellness and productivity. With every company, community, and country grappling with safely enabling people to return to places of work and social interaction, Practical Sustainability is a means to create a new normal state of being.

System of Systems: Buildings have complex problems because each one is an interconnected system of systems. Applied systems design addresses this complexity by combining a design-led approach with a systems-thinking mindset. It structures physical and digital architecture, modules, interfaces, and data, based on problem type and context to establish an ecosystem solution that adapts to real-world requirements. When leaders apply sustainability principles to systems design, a comprehensive view emerges to measure, analyze, and respond. This applied, system-design perspective will redefine how we value our real estate assets, spaces, and supply and distribution networks.

Digital Twin: This refers to digital manifestations of data interacting with the physical world, giving us a deep understanding of spatial relationships in context. They allow us to observe, model, and interact with our system of systems in an intelligent space or supply chain network. We can process the massive amounts of data generated from buildings by collecting data from sensors, IoT devices, apps, and other third-party sources. Data can be made actionable through visualizations and dashboards – and when output exceeds performance metrics, alerts and exception messages can be distributed. In this way, digital twins are the definitive risk management tool.

Buildings are fundamental to modern life, yet so often fall short of their sustainable promise. There is an urgent need to reverse that reality – and we have the means to do so. With the right corrective actions taken, the result will be a cleaner environment, and more sustainable future, for billions of people throughout the world.

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