North America

We may not have realized it at the time but the summer months were a break from COVID-19. After severe restrictions and lockdowns in the northern hemisphere’s Spring, regulations eased in June, July, and August, relative to the months before. Politicians announced return-to-work strategies, presenting strict rules for companies to enforce in their buildings. Desperate […]

“As I look out my window I can see [wildfire] smoke right now and I was warned about power outages last week,” said Ryan Hledik, principal at research consultancy Brattle Group, during a phone interview from his California home in mid-August. The state’s grid operators went on to order rolling blackouts for the first time […]

The indiscriminate economic impacts of COVID-19 are creating long-term implications for people and the planet. Ongoing research on the consequences of this evolving crisis predicts sharp declines for the US clean energy industry, leading to mass job losses and a slowdown in the growth of climate-saving clean energy technologies that could set us back years […]

The US now has the highest number of COVID-19 cases and fatalities anywhere in the world and most States are implementing strict lockdown measures to varying degrees. Fascinatingly, some of the best data we have on who and when people actually started isolating, is building occupancy data from smart buildings. The following graphic, by access […]

The aging workforce is an issue discussed a lot in smart building and future workplace circles. More often than not it is mentioned in the context of a demographic bulge that will quickly disappear from the workforce, leaving a big hole that must be addressed through tech-rich workplaces that will attract younger workers. This idea […]

“This is a tale of two cities — Toronto and Barcelona — that may hold important lessons for others around the world. Both have big ambitions to change the way they operate but reflect very different visions of how smart cities should be run,” writes John Thornhill, Innovation Editor at the Financial Times, in an […]

Geothermal heating reduces carbon emissions, energy costs, and dependence on fossil fuels, and has become a standard in many parts of the world. The US lags behind, however, with geothermal having to fight for the federal incentive “scraps” that solar and wind power have only recently recovered. New developments and a renewed sense of optimism […]