As building owners and developers grapple with the pandemic’s economic impact, waiting for them on the other side is the uncertainty of how many businesses will return once it is safe and what will they expect from their workspace when they do return? Aligning building performance goals, planning tactics, and determining measurable operational improvements are critical initiatives to prepare for the workforce’s eventual return. As the industry prepares, owners gain new insights and make better-informed technology investment decisions for the years ahead.

A smart building design should be outcome-based and used to set the property’s goals and measurement criteria. Understanding the desired outcomes creates a roadmap to success, for both new and existing buildings. Organizations determine their outcomes and roadmap by creating a digital strategy across their property portfolio. In most instances, the roadmap prioritizes smart building initiatives, even narrowing down thousands of possible outcomes and experiences to a shortlist of 100. For multiple buildings or campus plans, outcomes may look very different depending on how the building is used, its type of occupants, and even location. For the coming years, outcomes appear to lean toward occupant safety. However, figuring out how to operate in the post pandemic world has also renewed sustainability commitments across many industries, driving the need to look at current portfolios and new construction.

Creating a digital strategy shared with all stakeholders also drives the prioritization of infrastructure requirements. For example, a professional, smart building design will treat network connectivity as it were a utility. Traditional building design typically added network and connectivity late in the planning process. It is now best practice for newer smart buildings to have the network planned in the beginning alongside the other utilities to ensure optimal wireless performance and future-readiness. After all, in today’s digital economy, much like electricity or water, if a building lacks robust connectivity, it will also lack tenants, shoppers, visitors, students, researchers, patients and anyone else who could enter the doors.

The advantage of technology-advanced buildings is also becoming well documented and better understood. The European Commission report on Macroeconomic and Other Benefits of Energy Efficiency found that adding smart building technology can increase property values. Their findings showed that intelligent buildings commanded an estimated 11.8 percent more in lease value and 5–35 percent higher sales value, based on a literature review. Additionally, a study from the MIT Center for Real Estate demonstrated that building owners averaged 37 percent higher rent for smart buildings than non-smart buildings.

The pandemic has presented challenging market conditions, without question. It has also helped accelerate the creation and adoption of new smart technologies that prioritized occupant health and safety. However, most building stakeholders quickly find that a new technology solution only addresses the symptom and does not solve more significant operational challenges. Strategies for smarter buildings must be holistic and depend heavily on the integrations among various systems and subsystems. New Internet of Things platforms help diminish the siloed approach when elevators, lighting, HVAC controls are all planned, operated and monitored independently. To collect and analyze building data for real-time intelligence requires more of an orchestra approach where the systems work in a concert. Suffice to say, they all need to be in tune with one another to ensure all the data can be extracted and analyzed correctly.

Brilliantly planned systems integration also enables building owners and operators to share on-demand, vital information with occupants. Evaluating just one use case — such as floor occupancy — provides a glimpse into what data is needed and where the data needs to be dispersed visually — in real-time — or looking at industries such as healthcare for critical medical equipment asset tracking. No longer should one system stand on its own. A carefully designed systems integration plan will drive the creation of modern, lasting technology infrastructure and provide forward-thinking requirements for vendors wanting to be the latest plug-and play solution.

In most industries, standards, benchmarking, and programs help leaders gauge and market their success and provide criteria for designers and engineers. In 2020, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) partnered with U.L. to launch SPIRE™, the first comprehensive and objective smart building assessment and rating program. TIA’s Smart Building Working Group of more than 60 companies assembled to define the technology-neutral criteria framework for measuring and rating building intelligence. The criteria are based on six distinct categories: connectivity, sustainability, power and energy, cybersecurity, life and property safety, and health and well-being. The intent is to give owners and investors a holistic view of their building (or plans) and identif ies areas and actions for improvement. Once a building receives its verified rating, it gives the owner the opportunity for their asset to stand out in the marketplace.

SPIRE and other programs such as the BICSI Intelligent Buildings Standard provide the industry with much-needed technology requirements and complement other standards such as LEED, BREEAM, and WELL.

As building systems become better integrated, owners and FMs can produce the analytics and vi sualized reporting they need to enhance their overall operations and investment strategies through improved digital intelligence. As artificial intelligence and machine learning applications emerge, building operations can be better automated, and predictive maintenance measures will produce substantial short- and long-term savings opportunities. With the new smart building programs, data analytics will show continued improvement to meet and exceed ratings.

Digital intelligence also enables the measurement of improved occupant experience and building operations, leading to higher occupancy rates and revenue. To that end, government entities are exploring how to facilitate smart advancements for buildings and cities. The COVID-19 Relief Package passed by the U.S. Congress in January 2021 includes several provisions about smart buildings and cities. Ultimately, smart buildings improve sustainability, wellness, and many other aspects of society. As such, governmental bodies are keen on seeing them advance quickly as smarter buildings ultimately align with their goals to reduce stress on grids, lower greenhouse emissions, and ensure citizens’ health and safety. With the growing demand to implement sustainability initiatives, integrated, accurate data is imperative for reporting back to governing bodies.

No longer do building owners and FMs need to guess at smart building strategies, standards and implementation models. Smart building best practices now include creating a digital strategy based on desired building performance and occupant experiences. Leadership is defining measurable outcomes from the start, and industry and government programs are published and embraced. These best practices and programs also create future-proof technology requirements for owners and developers to evaluate building systems and their integration capabilities. When a smart building turns on, and the integrated technology systems are entirely in use, the available data will create more engaging and immersive possibilities than one can imagine.