Climate Change

British oil giant BP has acquired US-based building energy technology firm Blueprint Power.  Born in response to the energy regulatory transformation that emerged after hurricane Sandy in 2012, Blueprint’s technology supports the decarbonization of real estate by turning buildings into a flexible power network by connecting them to energy markets through cloud-based software. Blueprint will join the BP Launchpad portfolio, […]

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has established itself as a key software in the fields of building design, construction, and more recently operation. Each new iteration of BIM software introduces features that open up new opportunities for buildings and compel the building industry to imagine what might be possible in the years to come. BIM is now […]

Human activities have caused 1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels and this is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate, reads the highly-referenced IPCC climate report. Two industries have become central to addressing this existential crisis; the power sector that represents almost all of the […]

In 1950 only 30% of people lived in urban areas, now over 56% of people live in increasingly crowded cities – and that is expected to rise to 66% by 2050 as an additional 2.5 billion people join the global urban population. Urbanization creates numerous issues for citizens, including congestion, pollution, and poverty, but our crowded […]

What is the ultimate goal of smart technology? Is it to maximize productivity in workplaces? Is it to achieve net-zero energy performance? Is it to accurately predict human behavior? Is it to create digital urban utopias? Or, is it simply to make life better for users? There may be no right answer but all of […]

Once upon a time, smart buildings were all about energy management. Continuing pressure to cut costs and growing pressure to tackle climate change had converged to drive an energy efficiency revolution in buildings. At the heart of that revolution was smart technology, where sensor networks and big data software processed masses of information about the […]

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 […]