Articles

Governments around the world are committing to a green recovery from the economic challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the fact that global energy demand actually dropped by an estimated 5% in 2020, resulting in a 7% drop in total energy-related CO2 emissions, the global nature of this crisis has brought the world together. Understanding […]

California is a unique place, even within the US. It is home to outstanding natural beauty, with snow-capped mountains, dry deserts, scenic beaches, and unique natural habitats, but also some of the worst environmental problems in the world with wildfires, earthquakes, resource extraction, and urban air pollution. California is also home to several of the biggest […]

Data improves buildings and if your building is a hospital, that improvement leads to saving lives. Data can improve diagnosis, patient care, find staff in an emergency, locate equipment, optimize lighting and air quality, improve staff and patient mood, and increase efficiency to release funds. Each of these data applications plays its part in improving […]

Robots can be designed to clean the floor, as long as everything they might encounter in the room has a programmed response. Suddenly introduce an open bottle of juice and the robot is likely to knock it over then smear juice all over the floor, completely unaware that it is making the situation worse. Robots […]

Buildings and the electricity grid are inextricably linked. The building sector represents up to 75% of all electricity usage and is also a disproportionately large contributor to peak energy demand, according to our recent report. The electricity grid, including power generation, must serve that demand, and to do so efficiently, it must develop a deep […]

The pandemic has been incredibly disruptive to the real estate sector, and perhaps the biggest cancellation of the COVID-19 era so far is Google’s Sidewalk Labs project in Toronto. The Quayside redevelopment project was still in planning phases and held back by a resolute citizen movement that focused on issues of data privacy and corporate […]

The recent and tragic building collapse in Surfside, Miami, is just one of a number of high-profile building-related catastrophes we have seen in recent years. From the 23-story Grenfell Tower fire in London, UK, in 2017 to the partial collapse of a 15-story building in Houston, Texas, in 2020, to a spate of similar tragedies […]

Investment in Smart Glass Startups are Accelerating the Adoption of Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) Technology.