The power of ‘switching on’ buildings with data

COMMENT Tech in the UK real estate sector is buoyant, accounting for the largest share, around a quarter, of all European proptech businesses. But it has largely spawned an ecosystem of niche providers, addressing specific localised problems using relatively weak computing power and shallow data sets. We believe it’s not enough to have a small, imperfect piece of the puzzle. The built environment is a big, connected place, with big, connected challenges. Real estate data is growing exponentially. Clients and end users want more insights from the data, insights they can see as well as read to create value for them. This means user-friendly solutions with the flexibility to layer on bespoke cuts of data and to create multi-faceted data visualisations. And this requires a big data, AI-driven approach from versatile technology platforms. Alphabet soup Let’s take ESG as a prime example. Buildings use more than 40% of the world’s energy and generate more than 36% of global CO2 emissions. Most properties in the UK are not even close to where they need to be to meet climate change targets. So how do occupiers and owners start to reduce that damning footprint of energy consumption and emissions? And how do they track and evidence progress? The challenges are complex. First, owners and occupiers are beset by an “alphabet soup” of competing, relatively generic standards and bedevilled by simplistic and imperfect vendor property datasets and benchmarks. Second, almost all UK property today lacks building systems integration. What we see are siloed systems – HVAC, CCTV, presence sensing, lift controls, water use and power monitoring working in isolation. This carries through into reporting with no provision for even basic ESG reporting such as recycling statistics, operational carbon, embodied carbon, net biodiversity gain and so on. To enable transformational change, what’s needed is something more powerful, comprehensive and connected “under the bonnet”. At RE5Q, we currently have around 9 petabytes of data, more than Netflix and Disney combined. It’s all real estate-related and housed in a flexible data factory, with licensing, compliance and data quality managed using AI. To generate a truer ESG view, you need to bring together a range of conventional, alternative and adjacent data sources, triangulate between them and surface the insight. It’s a task that powerful data and technology platforms such as RE5Q can get done. ESG mission control The first step is incredibly important. We use our smart, AI-powered integration software to link point solutions, creating a more holistic, unified view across all existing systems. Typically, this can be done without additional wiring or hardware and, effectively, immediately makes non-digitised estates smarter. Second, we work with clients to identify and create adjacent datasets beyond the existing point solutions to enrich the insights. We have a comprehensive stack of our own integration software, including embedded carbon computation that works with CAD and geospatial data sets of all renewable energy, charging points, power plants and landfills. We can also create new bespoke data sets, tailored to individual client needs and preferences. All this data is then pulled through into a range of simple-to-read, customisable ESG dashboards available on mobile or desktop, built using gaming industry technology. This effectively operationalises clients’ net zero commitments, giving them an “ESG mission control” for an entire estate that allows them to monitor, respond, track and report on customised real-time information, in real time. ESG is just one example. The step change now online for the real estate sector is not in one individual application. It is in the power and versatility of data and technology platforms to “switch on” existing assets and fundamentally transform how owners and occupiers understand what they have and how it can create value for them. In doing so, it is enabling them to move beyond a traditional real estate quadrant paradigm –focusing on growth and yields among the four real estate plays of private equity, public equity, private debt and public debt – to a deeper, richer, more connected “fifth quadrant” of technology. Martin Samworth is chief executive and Seth Rogers is chief technology officer at RE5Q