Smart Office Buildings: The technology to reduce energy cuts costs by 20% and cuts office layout costs by 40%…

The world is changing. Hybrid work is here to stay; the need for skilled talent continues to intensify, and digitization is transforming how companies operate. Meanwhile, companies face increased pressure to reduce carbon emissions, improve resiliency, and manage soaring costs.

The way spaces and properties are managed needs to evolve with this changing world. That’s where smart buildings come in. Smart buildings use technology to enable efficient and economical use of resources, while creating a safe and comfortable environment for occupants. This technology is quickly becoming a competitive necessity, with the number of smart building deployments worldwide projected to increase from 45 million in 2022 to 115 million in 2026.

Smart buildings have the potential to improve the employee experience, generate cost savings, increase asset value, support sustainability goals, advance health and wellness mandates, and improve compliance and safety. Ultimately, technology has the potential to achieve fully integrated, self-diagnosing, self-optimizing, and self-healing buildings.

The process of converting existing properties into smart buildings doesn’t have to be prohibitively complex, disruptive, or expensive. The question is, where to start?

Building owners and facilities managers need access to quality data and the right technology to collect it. The current proptech solutions market is fragmented, proprietary, and siloed, which can make it difficult to enable holistic, contextualized, data-driven insights and automation at scale. Fortunately, overcoming these challenges is possible by investing in the right platform to simplify smart building infrastructure.

Data: The foundation of smart buildings

Information is the fuel that drives good decision-making. Corporate real estate teams make more informed decisions when armed with data about building occupancy, air quality, energy use, and critical building systems. Yet that data must be complete, accurate, and accessible to be truly useful—and then reported in a way that provides actionable insights.

Sourcing and harmonizing data

Whether you are managing one building or a portfolio of multiple facilities, you likely already collect data from multiple sources. This likely includes your building management system, computerized maintenance

management system (CMMS), integrated workplace management system (IWMS), various sensors, lighting systems, room booking applications, energy management system, and workplace apps, just to name a few.

The prospect of trying to tie together and harmonize data from those disparate sources can feel overwhelming. That’s why simplifying your smart building project requires a universally compatible technology platform that works across any building and integrates with multiple building management systems, third-party sensors, work management systems, and other devices.

For example, at JLL, our smart building management platform allows users to harmonize data without undertaking costly and time-consuming changes to legacy equipment or building management systems. A controller and gateway make it easy to connect all converted properties and disparate systems to the smart building platform in the cloud. The platform’s open application programming interface (API) supports integration with our JLL point solutions and third-party devices, such as sensors. That means

existing infrastructure can feed data into the platform, and you can add new sensors at any time as your smart building program evolves.

Extracting all data into one cloud-based platform provides two critical benefits: it allows for central monitoring and control across multiple areas and improves

reporting capabilities.

Converting data into insights

Once data points and priorities are aligned, the next step in advancing smart building initiatives is to convert into insights—in other words, put all of that information to work toward achieving property and business goals.

Your smart building management platform should feed data into one single dashboard, providing a one-stop shop for all building intelligence—from utility monitoring and real-time carbon emissions to maintenance issues and daily occupancy. Our JLL smart building platform enables customized dashboards that display information relevant to specific roles, such as corporate real estate director, facilities manager, energy manager and more.

With this single view into building performance, you can generate actionable insights to reduce energy consumption, provide targeted facilities management services and support condition-based maintenance practices. Moreover, the ability to efficiently ingest, process and generate actionable insights can be scaled across multiple properties, resulting in portfolio-level savings opportunities. Our JLL smart building management system drives maximum value by combining historical and trend information with real-time alerts and notifications to facilitate data-driven decisions in the moment.

Turning insights into action

Smart buildings do more than provide enhanced reporting. Some platforms use intelligent controls, enabling users to program equipment to function automatically based on data or conditions from any other device (with no coding required). For example, if an occupancy sensor detects multiple people in a conference room, the HVAC system can automatically direct enhanced airflow to that room without

wasting electricity cooling adjacent, unused rooms.

In some cases, our JLL platform can even automate the automation. For example, self-learning algorithms can help the system determine when to adjust lighting based on occupancy. System updates are also automatic, thanks to a cloud-based architecture that makes it easily scalable and virtually maintenance-free. It also has locally-embedded programming at every level, enabling= compounded intelligence, increased security and the ability for smart building operations to continue even in if internet

connectivity is lost.

Our JLL smart building platform allows users to take action remotely—for example, a receptionist can easily adjust the temperature in a conference room without leaving the front desk. With the right technology in place, every aspect of the building can be managed more efficiently and comprehensively.

Unlocking the benefits of smart buildings

Most facilities managers can justify investing in smart building solutions based solely on cost savings. For example, energy monitoring platforms and apps can reduce energy costs by 20%, and using technology to create the ideal office layout, density and amenity balance can cut costs by 40%.

But the benefits go far beyond savings alone. Smart buildings also enrich the employee experience and enhance sustainability.

Healthy, comfortable and optimized workplace

Smart building systems can help maintain a healthy, comfortable and optimized workplace that inspires and energizes employees—which in turn improves productivity, reduces sick time, and bolsters recruiting and retention.

Indoor air quality represents one area where smart building technology can have a measurable impact. By monitoring the presence of volatile organic compounds and airborne viruses

through air quality sensors, facilities managers can identify which areas of the building require increased ventilation. This translates into improved employee health and productivity:

a study conducted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that people working in office buildings with the poorest indoor air quality also tended to perform worst on

cognitive tests.

With workplace health and wellness gaining importance, attaining certifications such as the WELL Building Standard can help boost a building’s image and value—and smart building technology can help ensure compliance with various standards. Additionally, smart building platforms enable corporate real

estate teams to identify and address space under-utilization and efficiency issues, which has become a key challenge during the shift to hybrid work. Facilities management teams can then use the data to dynamically adjust service levels and building conditions based on occupancy data, such as climate controls, lighting and cleaning services.

Sustainable buildings

It’s no surprise that smarter buildings are more sustainable buildings. When facilities managers

have more insight and control of overall utility performance and carbon emissions, they

can identify opportunities to improve energy efficiency, helping to achieve to net zero

carbon and other sustainability goals. Smart building systems also provide data-driven

evidence to show that a building complies with environmental regulations and certifications.

Consider the case of a six-floor office building in London that implemented our JLL smart building

technology. Deploying the system decreased electricity consumption by 31%, reduced

maintenance and labor costs by 49% and lowered carbon emissions by 30%.iv The building owner

achieved a return on investment in three months, and the building is now WELL Certified Gold.

The large-scale adoption of remote and hybrid working represents another opportunity to

eliminate energy waste. For example, on days when the smart building system registers that

fewer employees are expected in the office, companies may choose to concentrate the

workers who are present—and the power, lighting and HVAC resources they require—in specific

areas of the building.

Reduced maintenance and labor costs

Smart building technology facilitates condition- based maintenance, a strategy that monitors

the actual condition of an asset to determine when maintenance is required. Sensors alert

facilities managers when a piece of equipment starts showing signs of failure, such as increased

vibrations or pressure changes—eliminating both unnecessary check-ups and the risk of business

disruptions from unexpected breakdowns.

In addition to facilitating condition-based maintenance, our JLL’s smart building platform can streamline janitorial expenditures by facilitating smart cleaning practices. Sensors identify which workspaces and rooms have been occupied and require cleaning, allowing

cleaning teams to direct their efforts only where they are needed. The result can be huge savings

in labor costs, elimination of redundancy and shorter training time.

Simplified smart building solutions for people, planet and profit

The lines between what’s good for business, what’s good for employees and what’s good for the planet increasingly intersect. Smart buildings deliver benefits for all three by providing healthy, comfortable

and sustainable workplaces—while reducing costs.

Luckily, implementing a smart building solution doesn’t have to be time- consuming or disruptive. We help you identify the right technologies to meet long-term priorities for your workforce and workplace. We simplify the process to speed transitions and reduce business disruption, allowing you to focus on what matters— creating more human-centric, resilient and responsible real estate.

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Many companies lose millions of dollars due to lack of employee engagement, loss of top talent, and inefficient or unneeded office space.

Working with Gregg Metcalf, clients gain the insights, the analysis, and the plan to obtain the lease and office space that retains the best employees, attracts top talent, and maximizes productivity as well as profitability.

To Contact Gregg Metcalf:

email: gregg.metcalf@jll.com

mobile: 404.661.9284