By Aneysha Minocha, Founder and CEO of Quantaco
What happens when you’re in a very big hurry, and precision is vital? Tom Cruise’s Top Gun character Maverick would say: “I feel the need – the need for speed.” But what if we’re talking about building engineers and the urgent need to decarbonise huge numbers of commercial and public sector buildings in the face of our Climate Emergency?
No shade on energy assessors and building engineers, but they prefer to be seen as conservative and cautious, rather than as flying by the seat of their pants. And rightly so. We expect, and they deliver, reliability.
The problem is that when it comes to climate change, we must move faster. Much faster. 80% of the buildings that will be here in 2050 already exist, and nearly 25% of the UK built environment’s carbon footprint comes from heating, powering and operating non-domestic buildings.
So to meet our Net Zero targets, we should be decarbonising well over 600 under-performing non-domestic buildings every week. (Spoiler alert: We’re not.)
The old-style piecemeal building-by-building approach is not working. Again, not a criticism of building engineers, they’re going as fast as they can.
We need a different approach, a digital solution to accelerate, simplify and cut the cost of decarbonising commercial and public sector property portfolios at scale. Happily the software already exists. It means that landlords and estate managers can receive in-depth and tailored decarbonising options for each building and whole portfolios in hours and days, rather than having to wait weeks and months.
Quicker decarbonisation sounds like great news for the future of humanity. So… all good then?
Well… Even the most unselfish building engineer might be wondering: “Where does that leave my job?”
Fair enough. A digital solution which speeds the process of assessing multiple technologies and decarbonisation options across whole estate portfolios is great news for the UK. But it might also feel like an existential threat to the roles of energy assessors, auditors and building engineers.
A bit like that meteorite which wiped out the dinosaurs. And nobody likes the thought of being the collateral damage in revolutionary change.
But in reality, it’s not like that at all.
The benefit of a digital solution is that it requires no initial site visits. That’s how it works so quickly and at scale. But it will still need building engineers on site at the next stage following funding to prepare the project delivery specifications.
I want to see the sector evolving to work together, rather than in competition.
If you’re an assessor or engineer taking a week or more to put together options analysis for each building, imagine how much more productive you could be if your service was digitally enhanced? You could do many more buildings in the same week you previously did one, with higher levels of service for your customers and an enhanced margin.
Think of yourself as Tony Stark and the digital solution as your Iron Man suit. A way to supercharge your already existing abilities.
Here’s how it could work better: As the building engineer or site manager, you input building information to a software platform like Quantaco, which also ingests (with your permission) energy data directly from the utility company.
In short order – hours in many cases – a detailed investment-grade decarbonisation options analysis is clearly presented. It benchmarks each building so you can target your attention where it’s most valuable.
It gives you the carbon, energy use, cost and regulatory stranding risk for installing multiple technologies – including Solar PV, Heat Pumps, Battery Storage, EV Charging, Solar Thermal and Thermal Storage. Then it gives you options to slash your carbon emissions and your operating costs.
You’ll get an overview of your whole estate, to help you assess economies of scale. It considers the lifespan of your existing technology, like gas boilers, so you can time your investment most efficiently.
It ensures you don’t spend too much – installing too much Solar PV or too many heat pumps, for instance. And the software will suggest specific products to buy from a vendor-agnostic database. No adverts. No back handers. Only the most appropriate technologies – with information on embodied carbon and Scope 3 impacts included.
Then it’s up to you. All the options laid out before you – technical, financial and regulatory. But you or your C-suite make the investment decision. You install the technology. And the software helps you track your projects and validate your savings.
If your property portfolio sits within the NHS or elsewhere in the public sector, you’ll be feeling very tight for money. So here’s more good news. The sort of software I’m talking about can also help you win funding from the government’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. And that’s not merely big talk. It has already been happening.
So, no meteorite. No dinosaurs. Just some very significant help to do what you already do, but faster and more of it. A much quicker and cost-effective route to Net Zero for commercial and public sector property portfolios at vast scale. Which is no less than we urgently need.
When it comes to how things could be and should be for decarbonisation software and building engineers, I’ll quote one more classic film. As Humphrey Bogart to Claud Rains at the end of Casablanca: “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Aneysha Minocha is the Founder and CEO of Quantaco – the software platform empowering real estate owners, investors and managers to make strategic and technical decisions to achieve Net Zero at scale with confidence, through empirical, data-driven strategies and rapid cleantech investment options analysis.
Quantaco is government funded through Innovate UK, and is the only software platform on the NHS Sustainable Estates Framework. www.quantaco.ai
