{"id":2439,"date":"2020-05-12T19:36:29","date_gmt":"2020-05-12T19:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/?p=2439"},"modified":"2020-05-12T19:36:29","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T19:36:29","slug":"the-world-of-inconsistent-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/the-world-of-inconsistent-data\/","title":{"rendered":"The world of (inconsistent) data"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I left Bulb in late April 2019 and moved on to work with a team inside ING researching how financial institutions could utilise building data to develop a new generation of sustainability-led financial services until March this year. After working with Bulb, EDF &amp; British Gas over the past 15 years, I certainly knew plenty about energy and smart building solutions (access control, environmental monitoring, occupancy monitoring) and started digging into how these things connect to the world of finance. I wanted to find out if we could easily use the usage data from across a building and help financial institutions access that data and offer leading \u2018green\u2019 financial products like loans, bonds, mortgages.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But instead of radical innovation opportunities, I unearthed some quite mundane yet crucial data problems that will need to be solved if we\u2019re looking to reach the ambitions set by the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ipcc.ch\/sr15\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2018 IPCC Report on Climate Change<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Initially the team I was working with was concentrating on commercial real estate so my research and thoughts reflect this.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What data?<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When it comes to measuring the \u2018greenness\u2019 of a building with multiple tenants things can get complicated quickly. A few different things need to be taken into consideration such as:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the way the building is built<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the way it\u2019s being utilised\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the local weather<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">local building standards<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Then there are more strategic things that you could decide to measure such as:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the sustainability of the construction site<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the impact of construction on that land<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">whether the energy supplied comes from renewable sources<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">whether it supports access to public transport options<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The quality of the experience when you\u2019re in the completed building<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Any more and you\u2019d be looking at each owner in a lot more depth, something called ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) benchmarking. This is quite heavy handed and requires levels of disclosure across a business that is difficult to gather so I\u2019ll leave this aside for now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If what we\u2019re trying to do is to measure the impact of a building there are 2 ways that the market does this: EPC data &amp; green building certification. I\u2019ll discuss both.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>EPCs\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2010 the European Commission published the <a href=\"https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/energy\/en\/topics\/energy-efficiency\/energy-performance-of-buildings\/overview\">Energy Performance of Buildings Directive<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which makes it compulsory for building owners to produce an energy performance assessment when there\u2019s any change in lease or ownership. They even go as far as detailing what the assessment should include (Annex 2 of the Directive) but not precisely how it should be conducted nor where it should be published.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At a national level, every country then uses their own <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uk-ncm.org.uk\/\">\u2018National Calculation Methodology\u2019<\/a> to compensate for local weather and building practices.That calculation ends up being used by government approved software which a trained assessor can use, together with an on-site visit of the building. This is important: the assessment process is not digitised by default. Digital models do exist (see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ucl.ac.uk\/bartlett\/energy\/\">UCL&#8217;s Energy Institute<\/a>) but aren&#8217;t used at large. The discrepancy between a plan and the real thing, as well as lack of effective documentation means a human is ultimately in charge of assessing the fabric of a building. That also means there are differences in assessments with every assessor. Not ideal but that\u2019s one of many things that aren\u2019t ideal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once an EPC assessment is made, a certificate is issued and sent to the owner of the building and in some cases, <a href=\"https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/energy\/en\/content\/public-epc-registers\">a national register<\/a>. That register isn\u2019t mandated by the European Commission and they don\u2019t document them directly, instead indicating if they are publicly accessible or not<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Out of the 27 member states, some have public registers (9), or registers with limited access (7) but many don\u2019t (11).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>The strength of EPCs is that it\u2019s part of EU law so everyone has to do it.<\/strong> The weakness is that every country calculates theirs slightly differently so it\u2019s hard to compare buildings across countries. What does a D rated building in Holland mean compared to a D rated building in Spain? Is the path to improvement the same?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When so many financial services are built on international real estate portfolios, the hyperlocal nature of EPCs can be a barrier. I think that\u2019s one area where the European Commission should get more involved to force a public and detailed register for every country so that people can shop their next factory floor or restaurant knowing what the EPC history of the building is.\u00a0 How precisely this clashes with GDPR, I\u2019ll explore in a future blog post about the <a href=\"https:\/\/databrick.co.uk\/\">databrick<\/a> project I&#8217;m ramping up with Mark Simpkins.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li><b>Green building certificates<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Outside of Europe there are no standardised ways of describing the greenness of a building so organisations around the world took a blended approach, mixing ESGs and EPCs to create commercially driven certification schemes specifically targeted at new buildings. This serves the double purpose of helping champion newly designed buildings instead of \u2018old\u2019 buildings and making people think across different dimensions of the building project. Here are some of the aspects which certifications schemes tend to analyse:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Management<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (procurement, stakeholder participation, ease of maintenance)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Indoor Environment<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (building management systems, ventilation, heat, smoking policies, indoor air quality)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Materials<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (source, recyclability, renewables)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Energy &amp; Water Efficiency<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (CO2 emissions, energy sources, energy delivery performance, water savings)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Site Ecology<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (public transport access, car parking facilities, outdoor environment, cyclist access)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Innovation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (smart technology, culture, job creation)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Green certification is often for a new building with one owner in it. The mixture of topics covered in the certification means that a well-rated building could hide some fundamental flaws simply because it did well on other aspects. <strong>These schemes are also quite expensive and not regulated<\/strong>.\u00a0 In some instances, they don\u2019t even require an on-site visit which means they can be very much an abstract view of a building. Why would anyone use them? Well in lieu of regulation, it\u2019s a good idea to champion sustainable building practices in any way possible, especially in nations and regions most affected by climate change.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Both EPC and green certification are better than nothing at all but the real challenge is in comparing them effectively and championing them effectively. The EU\u2019s lack of definition and green certification bodies\u2019 lack of transparency on their methodology doesn\u2019t help. But all of this is quite opaque to the general public. It was notable though that the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/news.opendatacommunities.org\/updates-to-energy-performance-certificate-open-data\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">UK Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government decided that EPC data wasn\u2019t personal data and republished the certificates in a very comprehensive open data register<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. It\u2019s the highest quality data around in Europe along with the Dutch registry and along with APIs from green certification bodies like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.breeam.com\/tools\/breeam-api\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BRE<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> it helps the financial sector automate the decision making around commercial real estate, helping those owners that need it most and helping buildings improve over time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>All of this research fed into <a href=\"http:\/\/overlay.earth\">Overlay<\/a>, the tool Stef and Tee are building today in the heart of the City. I&#8217;m really grateful for the opportunity to dig into the details of environmental building regulation, especially as I think of its potential to <a href=\"https:\/\/lowcarbondesigninstitute.org\/\">inspire creative people<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I left Bulb in late April 2019 and moved on to work with a team inside ING researching how financial institutions could utilise building data to develop a new generation of sustainability-led financial services until March this year. After working with Bulb, EDF &amp; British Gas over the past 15 years, I certainly knew plenty&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/the-world-of-inconsistent-data\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The world of (inconsistent) data<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,30,110,113],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cities","category-internet-of-things","category-smart-homes","category-sustainability","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_58e.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p41XhY-Dl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2468,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439\/revisions\/2468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}