Biome

The European Union’s (EU) interest in promoting environmental and social health has led to the passing of a law requiring large companies to report Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). To incentivize companies to move in the right direction, the EU has made approval of low interest government backed loans contingent on whether the companies meet ESG KPI targets. Because of this, companies have a great interest in being able to measure, monitor and improve upon these metrics. For the Austrian Real Estate Consortium (AREC) , investing in a system that is able to collect information on ESG, develop KPIs, and help improve upon these metrics is essential for them. As a company vying for low interest rate government backed loans but also as a company trying to attract other companies to rent their office spaces, these technologies will be essential. As a commercial landlord, Austrian Real Estate Consortium (AREC) can provide this system to their tenants to help them fulfill EU ESG reporting requirements and enhance their chances of receiving government backed low interest loans.

 

Reducing energy consumption in an office building is difficult for a company given the importance of employee physical comfort in improving productivity. Lighting and Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) consume a lot of energy. While lighting can be minimized by turning it on only when needed using common motion detection technologies, targeted HVAC is not typically widely available. In general, all available spaces in an office building that could be used by people are conditioned as if in use, meaning that the building heats, ventilates, and air conditions unused spaces unnecessarily. Additionally, employees have minimal awareness of the amount of energy they consume while working.

 

To reduce a building’s HVAC system energy use, it was essential to create a system that would allow the building to sense the presence of people and only condition a space when and where people are present. Because the HVAC’s purpose is to adjust temperature and ventilation to promote health and comfort for the people occupying the space, we wanted our system to be able to sense environmental conditions such as temperature, volatile organic compounds (a type of impurity), carbon dioxide, and humidity. Aurora is the sensing component of the Biome system. It uses a combination of environmental gas sensors and presence accounting to monitor air quality and occupancy. Presence accounting is accomplished using computer vision, which determines the number of people in a given space without any raw data or identifiable information stored or uploaded to the cloud. This approach is compliant with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This data is stored in a database in accordance with financial accounting standards and can then be integrated into the rest of Biome. With these sensing capabilities, the building can then act intelligently when activating its HVAC system to condition a space, reducing the overall energy consumption.

 

The data collected by the sensors provides a wealth of information about the condition of the building, the behavior of people, and the HVAC building energy consumption. Anima is the data processing and aggregation layer. It refines the data into meaningful and actionable metrics that can provide better insights into the building. For example, raw carbon dioxide concentrations across a floor show interesting trends but are unactionable on their own. However, when combined with occupancy data and temperature, they can help create a sophisticated HVAC Building Automation control loop. Anima allows this control loop to easily be created and updated by someone with a minimal programming background. It also allows Environmental data (temperature and carbon dioxide concentration) to be linked with Social data (occupancy and user submitted feedback).

 

Building Automation brings smart-lighting-esque integration to many other building systems by providing high spatial resolution to heating and cooling systems. This automation allows energy to be saved when spaces are not occupied. Carbon dioxide concentration measurements allow ventilation to be optimized, finding the balance between saving energy and ensuring adequate air exchange.

 

Beyond Building Automation, this data can also act in Human-in-Loop situations through Atlas, a Facility Manager centric interface. Atlas is a central hub for real-time action and long-term improvements in the building. An alert system filters data from Anima to provide the most relevant information, while a KPI management system allows the Facility Manager to explore the relationships between all the data.

 

The EU mandates ESG reporting for two primary reasons: safeguarding the well-being of the workforce and raising awareness about their role in environmental protection. Our system promotes a reduction in building energy consumption and enhances the health of building occupants by creating a mutually beneficial relationship between the building and its users. We achieved this symbiotic relationship by designing a system that allows the building and its users to sense and communicate with each other. The sensor boxes, Aurora, within a given space inform users about their environmental status through different color and lighting modes. High energy alerts are designed to encourage users to reduce their energy consumption by unplugging devices and turning off unnecessary lights.

 

For tenants, feedback is important to encourage beneficial behavior. Atlas user interface allows users to see how their behavioral changes influence the overall energy consumption of their building by allowing them to compare their company's energy consumption against other similar companies. This information incentivizes users to practice energy conservation. The Atlas user interface allows users to give feedback directly to the building manager. It relays their issues and their overall satisfaction with the building and serves as another tool to measure social KPIs.

 

Biome provides a feedback loop for companies to develop and measure ESG key performance indicators and improve upon them to enhance the overall sustainability of buildings and health, comfort and well being of users.