Michael Grant from Metrikus and Michael Przytula from Accenture explore how to balance energy efficiency with indoor air quality in buildings. They discuss the role of data aggregation, collaboration, and real-time monitoring to achieve both ESG goals.
There’s a tension between making buildings as energy efficient as possible and improving indoor air quality. But with climate and comfort being vital aspects of the ‘E’ and ‘S’ in ESG – how can companies find a balance between the two?
Today Michael Grant, the COO at Metrikus and Michael Przytula, Managing Director of Intelligent & Digital Workplaces at Accenture come together to talk about making buildings as energy efficient as possible and improving indoor air quality. Together they talk about the importance of data aggregation, collaboration, and real time monitoring.
Resources Mentioned:
Michael G: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome to a another podcast or another ramble or another episode of talking to Michael Paler. Actually, we seem to do this more and more regularly, so today we are talking about E S G. I'm Michael Grant. The COO and co-founder of Metric, and today, again talking with Michael Priscilla.
Michael, could you just introduce yourself for everyone?
Michael P: Sure, thanks Michael. Yeah, Michael pr I lead our intelligent digital workplace business a Accenture.
Michael G: So today we're talking about the magic of E S G and talking about the e and the S side of things, and not so much the governance, but there's a tension between making buildings.
As efficient as possible and as comfortable as possible, linking in indoor air quality, but also making them as energy efficient as possible, and can we get those things working in harmony together? So, That's, that sounds like a tricky thing to do. It can be a tricky thing to do but we've managed to do it with you guys, right?
Michael P: So yeah, it's definitely something that, that I think the industry is struggling with. You know, we've all got [00:01:00] this drive for being more environmentally friendly. Saving costs, saving energy reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But at the same time, especially now with organizations looking to make workplaces, places that people really want to come especially coming out of the pandemic people have become, All that more conscious about air quality and you know, is the environment safe for me to go into?
Am I gonna get sick? Organizations have put a heightened focus on monitoring air quality. Being proactive about air quality and as you said, those two things can sometimes come into into conflict with each other around. Are we using too much power to make the air quality better to ventilate the space?
And so it, it is an interesting crossroads between the two.
Michael G: I think. Part of that comes from the pressure from people coming back to the office right before Covid. No one knew what indoor air quality was, or if they didn't really care about it. And PM 2.5 pm 1:00 PM 2.5. Everyone knows the [00:02:00] difference in the microns of dust.
Now, IKEA is selling indoor air quality sensor. They may not be good ones, but if people bring those to the office and they say, this is telling me that I've got bad indoor air quality in the office, Mr. And Mrs. Employer, you need to do something about it. You can't just ignore it, you know, you have to do something about it.
So I think it is forever changing and indoor air quality is getting bigger and bigger, and it's not a fad. It is here to stay. And I think, you know, we'll get into it in a minute, but there's a lot that you can do to improve the indoor air quality that, that is not as actually as hard as everyone thinks it is, but the.
I think the energy side of things is the one that's the key driver for this, right? How do we get the energy efficiency, but the indoor air quality is as optimal as possible. Well either keeping energy levels low or trying to figure out how we reduce them.
Michael P: Yeah. De definitely finding the balance is key.
And you know, one of the things that, that we're really here to talk about, right, is data is key to that, right? Is how do we have the right information to help us make the right decisions to find where that right balance is. [00:03:00]
Michael G: So let's dig into efficiencies a little and the work that we've done a, around your buildings, but also just start to peel back the layer of efficiency before we start to get into anything else.
Michael P: Yeah, sure. So, you know, I think it's pretty well known out there that you know, commercial building specifically in the US today account for around about 20% of all the energy that's used and. Of that 20%, you know, 30% of that is, is normally going to waste. It's leaking out somewhere from inefficiencies heating or cooling.
Things that don't need to have heating, need to be heating or cooled. Either due to occupancy, due to out of hours, due to holidays. And so there's a lot of room for us to do some really simple things just to make the utilization of energy in the spaces that we have more efficient to start with.
And then you can sort of get into to tuning. What we're doing when when the spaces are actually occupied.
Michael G: Building efficiencies there I think we could talk about this all day cuz it is one of the most important parts, but there is [00:04:00] then the conflict between efficiency and indoor air quality and people just pushing indoor, people pushing outside, airing.
Cause there's no fresh air anymore in the world, but people pushing outside air in so, big important topic, but there is tension and there's a battle between the two, right?
Michael P: No, definitely. There, there's definitely the struggle between how do we reduce energy consumption? How do we reduce power and how do we maintain the quality of air in the space?
You know, how do you. Ideally everyone's answer is, well, you just continually pump in fresh air. Yeah. But we know that continuing to pump in that air is it takes energy. It takes power. There's more fans running, there's more air that's coming in, there's more air that's going out.
And so that isn't the most efficient way to do it. And conversely, you know, we don't want to just continue to recycle the air that's in the space over and over. And this is really where I find the value of, and so there's a lot of room for us to do some really simple things just to make the utilization of [00:05:00] energy in the spaces that we have more efficient to start with.
And then you can sort of get into to tuning. What we're doing when when the spaces are actually occupied. The spaces that you need to. Yeah. And that's sort of like a whole other interesting topic around, you know, the, how buildings are designed how HVAC systems designed. I'm a strong believer that HVAC systems haven't been designed to be as efficient as they can be.
Michael G: They're the first thing that's engineered out. Right. When the value engineering starts, it starts with hay track and then it goes down.
Michael P: Yeah. And so, you know, ideally we want to be able to bring in. Fresh air and you know, very small increments into very small areas. You know, large conference rooms is the example.
You know, we've seen it over and over again. You get people, especially now they come into the office for these working sessions. You stick 20 people into a room. Yeah. They close the door, they stay in there all day. You know, air quality goes through the floor. Red lights go on all around the place.
And in most buildings, the only way to fix that is to pump fresh air into maybe an entire [00:06:00] stack, right? Maybe not even just a floor. And ideally in some of those larger spaces, we'd want to just be able to do it on a much more granular level. But that tension is is definitely there.
And having the data even in real time is really key there to know, right? Have we hit the mark? Have we got the building to the quality that we want. Yeah. And you know, is this the right time to switch back to like efficiency mode? And kind of like a car, right? When you put your foot on the gas to go fast.
Yeah. And then when can you put it back onto to the eco mode? Yeah. To just keep things running at the current speed or pace that, that you're going at. So, definitely an area for a lot of improvement and area that the data can help you find balance.
Michael G: So we need to improve indoor air quality and the efficiency part we're just talking about there's no need to have great indoor air quality if people aren't there.
And there's no need to have great indoor air quality on the weekends if nobody's in the space. So, And indoor air quality, big piece. What are you guys seeing around it internally as Accenture, but also externally with your customers?
Michael P: Yeah, sure.[00:07:00] So, you know, there's definitely, you know, data is key as I mentioned before a lot of organizations really don't know what goes on in, in the buildings that they have.
It's almost like the saying you know, for tree falls in the forest does it make any noise? If nobody's in the building there's not really anybody that is generally looking at what is air quality like, is it hot? Is it cool? Is the power still on? Is the HVAC running over the weekend?
Is it running over public holidays? How late into the night is it running? There's all of these interesting things that for many buildings were put in place when the building was first commissioned and they're left to, to operate that way. Now we're seeing with the ability to gather data and bring in more real-time information being able to understand what's actually happening in those spaces.
Our buildings, you know, using power that they shouldn't be. Is the, even when they are occupied is the air quality, both from a quality perspective, but also from a temperature perspective. You know, is it where. People are comfortable with is it where the organization is looking for it to be and being able to be more [00:08:00] reactive now because we have information and we have data to be able to make informed decisions about what we should be doing with the space.
Michael G: Yeah, and it's I think we'll get into it a bit more detail about, you know, your office in Madrid, but. We haven't seen a building yet that we've taken data from. And you need real time, near real time and historic data to make these informed decisions. But we haven't seen a building yet where they can't, efficiencies can't be made.
Right. And I think, as you said, most of these building management systems or building automation systems are set up day one and they're not really changed. They're a, they're just a time clock on off. There's no and you don't need to make them. Really smart and do lots of smart things. Turn them off on during the day.
But looking at working hours as a base pattern is. A an easy place to start, right?
Michael P: Yeah, definitely. And not just working hours, but also, you know, understanding the dynamics of the building, right? And di the [00:09:00] dynamics of the environment around the building. And just because people come in at eight o'clock in the morning doesn't necessarily mean that you have to start.
Heating or calling at eight o'clock. You know, it could be that the building has the ability to maintain the temperature that it's got for some period of time before you need to start heating or calling it. Yeah. So, it's not just this the simple, Hey we start heating and or calling when people come and then we stop when they leave.
It's understanding the dynamics of the space. How does the building naturally. Heat and cool itself. What's the environment outside, you know, what's the sun coming in through the windows? What's the, you know, sometimes the type of furnishings that are in the building does it retain heat?
And and can we turn things off earlier than they need to be turned off? Or can we turn things on later in the mornings? And that's some of the things that, that we've started to be able to do with the data, the way we're collecting on some of our spaces.
Michael G: Yeah, I think that's a good lead into Castana 85.
So it's your Iberia hq, you moved it to Madrid. You guys set it up and then over three weekends we, as MEUs, we [00:10:00] installed footfall sensors, occupancy sensors and desks, desks, meeting rooms, and some breakout spaces. And then we put indoor air quality and we're still working together to get the BMS into the system.
But those. Three data sets, occupancy, footfall, and indoor air quality started to show quite a, an interesting pattern even over the first few weeks and months. Right. That, that you guys are now benefiting from.
Michael P: Yeah, no it, it's interesting because you know, not only does it, has this helped us around understanding how spaces used.
It's also helped us to understand and provide not only to our operations people, but also to our employees, some transparency around what's happening in the building. It's helped us to be able to work more proactively with our landlords around issues that we may be finding with systems that have been you know that we inherit or that we.
Work with that are part of the building for us to be able to have open transparent conversations with them about issues that, that we're seeing. So, it's no longer about us calling them up and saying, Hey, we [00:11:00] think, or we feel, yeah. It's like we know we have information, we have data. We can share them around issues that, that we may be seeing.
Whether it's hotspots in the building, whether it's air quality issues at certain times of the day it may be, you know, air quality issues that happen in when it's a certain season. There may be on heavy pollen days or something like that. Yeah. That helps us ensure that the building that we're providing in the space we're providing to our employees is, you know, of the quality and the standard that, that we're looking for without having to purely rely on information that we get from the service providers that, that we're using or from our landlords.
But the other thing that it's really helped us do is get a really good understanding about how to operate the space effectively. Yeah. And efficiently. Being able to draw data points between when people come in, when they leave, when we turn on hvac, when we turn off hvac and the natural the natural, I can't even think of the word here.
The natural behavior of the building has helped us [00:12:00] to be able to tune the way that we use those systems and ultimately the way that we use power, the way that we use energy to find that really nice balance between operating efficiency and the quality of of the air and the environment that we provide to our people.
Michael G: So having all of the data, having all the information live and historic and overlaying those data sets, which is where we helped you guys build the picture. What's the outcome? What's the ongoing benefits that you're seeing both from a people perspective but also from a financial perspective?
Because both sides are. Almost equally important in this day and age, we're trying to reduce energy costs, get to, you know, carbon reductions, greenhouse gas reductions, but making sure the space is as comfortable as humanly possible for people in it. What outcomes are you seeing and what are you guys benefiting from and across?
Kind of all of those areas.
Michael P: Yeah, sure. No, I mean, you know, the data is key. You know, before, you know, any organization can really make some solid calls on what they're going to do or changes that they're gonna make. You [00:13:00] know, data is the key piece of this. And so the data that we've been able to gather with Now with the platform that, that you guys have helped us with has given us that raw data around what's actually happening in the space.
So then as we've been able to take that and correlate information about so as I said earlier, you know, who's coming in, what is the air quality? Like, what is the heating and cooling our attribute to the building? Like, we've been able to take some of our data science teams, Pull that together and be able to identify some tangible changes that we've been able to make in how we operate the building.
So a couple of examples of those. We've been able to pinpoint certain times during various seasons where we're able to start cooling the building. At a later time during the day for, in the summer, for example. And then being able to to turn off HVAC earlier in the day as well, just to do with the how our building naturally hits up after we stop calling stop calling the space.
And that's actually been able to, on average, we're saving around about two hours a [00:14:00] day of hvac. Power or energy usage to maintain the same comfort level for our employees throughout the day, throughout the time that they're there. We're also able to pinpoint some certain days that, that specifically on public holidays in Europe, that we were previously.
Running HVAC during those days when the building was totally empty. Empty. Yeah. So it's been able to help us identify, you know, entire days that we've been able to shut things down. But also to be able to get these small improvements what seemed to be small improvements, but you add that up over the course of a year.
And we know we've been able to get some super significant savings. At the moment we are Seeing around about a 30,000 US dollar a year savings based on, you know, our previous baseline from that specific building alone on being able to tune just that specific piece of how the building operates.
Michael G: And that's quite a small space, so it's not like one Manhattan West or Paris or Chicago. So that's a significant saving for a small space. And I think [00:15:00] part of that, Investigation where we had, well, one of our head of B m s engineering, have a look at it. There was also something in the b m s that they were able to find to do some preventative maintenance on there as well.
Michael P: I think as part of that, yeah, no, de definitely, again it's having the information understanding you know, what's actually happening in the space, how the space is performing, how the systems are performing and being able to get in front of of issues even before they occur.
You know, the last thing that, that you want not only as a building manager, but also as an occupier, is to have the space uncomfortable for people. Yeah. You know, I'm a. I'm a strong believer specifically at the moment with you know, return to office being you know, a challenge for some organizations that you don't get all that many opportunities to give people.
A reason to continue to come back. And it can sometimes just be one or two bad experiences that they say, you know what? I went in today and it wasn't comfortable. I wasn't happy that the space didn't work for me. It was too hard, it was too cold. I was sneezing the whole time. [00:16:00] Whatever it might happen to be.
There's too many people. There, you're gonna turn them off. And so, being able to make sure that the space is comfortable, that people feel safe. I'm also a strong believer in transparency of this information through to the occupants of this, of the space. I think it drives a a level of accountability for the organization.
Yeah. To be able to not only share that information with employees, but through sharing that information. Helps drive some acknowledgement to your employee base that, Hey, I'm sharing this with you and you know, we are monitoring this and we are gonna do something about it. And so being able to make that information available in real time as well to people I think is a really valuable is a really valuable use of the data.
Michael G: Yeah I agree. And it is. It's not as hard as everyone thinks. You need the data, as we've said, and then you need to take action on the data. If you don't take action on the data, you read it and say, oh yeah, there's an issue there, but it's taking the first step, right? It's taking the first [00:17:00] step and actually taking some action.
Even if that action is getting some teams together and say, how do we fix that problem? You've gotta start somewhere.
Michael P: Yeah, no, definitely Michael. I think it's one of the things that you know, as we said right up front, you know, Castana 85 for us is a small space. But it's also a space that we're using as a laboratory for not only for ourselves across our portfolio, but for how we can help our clients and take the learnings that we're making from that space to scale them out for organizations.
One of the. Key. I think hurdles that I see with a lot of our clients that, that we speak to outside is you know, either they don't have the data or some of them do have the data, but that's all that they have is they have information or they have data that's doesn't really tell them anything.
They don't understand how to read it, they don't how understand how to interpret it. And most importantly, I don't do anything with it. And, you know, having the data without actioning it is kind of, you know, I see it as as a wasted investment, right? You, yeah. You're much better to start small. Find a space, find a building, get the data.[00:18:00]
Perform the actions. You know, you have to trust the data. And I think that's one thing that organizations sometimes struggle with, especially ones that aren't used to being operated from a data perspective. Yeah. Is that they get the data and if the data doesn't necessarily align with what they thought or how they've traditionally done things, they tend to question it a little bit.
And I think that's one of the key things that, that you know, facilities management and the real estate industry as a whole you know, needs to trust in the data that these buildings are telling you when you get them more. And, you know, you have the ability to action these things.
You know, in real time or near time. And then the great thing about this is that after you actually action the data, you can very quickly see the impacts of what you've done. And and you know, what, if you were wrong, Then that's fine. You can change back. You can, yeah. You can change back.
You can make changes again. You can make changes again. But the good thing is that you can see the outcomes of the changes. And so it's not only about getting the data, it's, you need to feel comfortable and confident in actioning that data, [00:19:00] and that's really where you're gonna get the value.
The data itself isn't really where the value sits. The value is in actioning. That the data and actioning the insights that you can gain from that data,
Michael G: it's hugely important. But also at the same time, you said something just then that is, is I think, a way to help customers as well.
You've done this yourself to make it more efficient, but you now can help customers by, you know, you're kind of drinking your own champagne, right? So you've done it, you've learned, you've made changes. Those changes have worked. You're now doing it in other buildings. You can fast fail when you need to, but, Some customers don't have teams of people, which is why I think it's important for customers to be able to say, right, our strengths are in what we do.
A finance company as an example. How do we go and take action and how do we have a plan in place to go and make our buds more efficient? They can come to speak to people like yourselves at Accenture because not only do you do it for yourselves, you do it for your customers, but how do you take action on that data?
They may not have data scientists that are in [00:20:00] the building side of things or the workplace side of things. If, you know, if you're a finance company, you wanna concentrate on finance cause that's where your bread and butter and your revenue comes from. But getting someone in to help take that action, I think is another intelligent thing to do.
Rather than try and get your FM or your ops person to try and figure it out themselves, get some experts in to try and, well, not to try, but get some experts in to help understand that data and make a plan and make actions. And push forward.
Michael P: Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, we mentioned it at the start that the start of this discussion that there are some really common things that, that we see around the place, right?
And you know, public holidays, weekends, yeah. Too early, too late. And some of these things are trends that we pick up from our own buildings, right? From our buildings that we do, from our clients' buildings that we do. And the more of them that we do. We continue to build this. You know, checklist of, well, have they got this problem?
Have they got that problem? Yeah. And can really help us bring value to our clients really rapidly. But, you know, as [00:21:00] an organization with over, you know, 700 buildings ourselves or 700 spaces across the globe, it helps us drive value for ourselves. So, you know, we're, we are leading from the front Try to bring value to our own organization utilizing technology, utilizing data and at the same time, you know, trying to help our clients in the same space.
Michael G: Yeah. And you said something important earlier. You don't need to try and go and do the whole estate or every building straight away. I. You can't do too small, you can't do too big. You've gotta find that sweet spot where you can start to drive the value and the savings and then that starts to pay for other projects.
Right? But I think the interesting part is companies need to understand this. ROI doesn't come day two after doing the installation. You've gotta look at the data, you've gotta make decisions, you've gotta take data over a period of time, and then you've gotta look at different aspects of that building.
The R ROI will come. I don't think there's a building that won't have a positive R o I. But it doesn't happen overnight, so people just need to know that this does take a little bit of time. It doesn't take years. I think it's probably one of the faster [00:22:00] ROIs in our industry together that we've seen.
Oh,
Michael P: definitely. That is one of the key things I counsel all of our clients that we talk to about this, especially when they come to us and say, Hey we want to deploy sensors or we want to get data. The first question I always post them is like, are you prepared to action the data?
Because if you're not prepared to action the data, you're gonna spend a lot of money installing things, implementing systems, getting help doing that, and then you're gonna have data that will tell you stuff, but you're gonna get no ROI from any of this. The organization needs to be prepared to trust the data and to trust the information that comes out.
And that's where the ROI is gonna be. So if you are prepared to. You know, action the data to trust the data to, you know, fast fail sometimes. Yeah. Right. With what the data's telling you. That's where the ROI comes. And so you really need to be prepared to go in for this to, you know, open your eyes about what's actually happening in your space how the space is performing and then be prepared to, to take [00:23:00] the actions.
And if you take the actions, you will get the return. Yeah.
Michael G: So it's data, study actions, r, roi. We good everyone, we've just solved all your problems.
Michael P: Michael,
Michael G: thank you very much for coming in mate and having another conversation. I'm sure we'll have many more to come, but a as always, I really appreciate your time.
Michael P: My pleasure. It's always it's always great to have a discussion with you, Michael topic that's close to my heart. So, look forward to when we do it next. Thanks. Good.