In the article “Smart buildings: What 'smart' really means”, Lecomte (2019) states that having certification with standardized metrics is fundamental for smart buildings to wholly emerge in the 'built environment'. Lecomte mentions that the lack of unanimity from various stakeholders has delayed the drafting of standardized rubrics. Hence, private and public sectors design their own metrics to assess smart buildings but their rubrics vary from one another. However, current private and public metrics have been unsuccessful in tackling the complicated and expanding aspect that buildings will perform in ‘smart cities’. Lecomte emphasizes that one crucial component to be included in the standardized rubrics would be cyber risk management as cyber threats ‘increase exponentially’ along with more advanced and integrated technology in smart buildings. Lecomte concludes that holistic and reliable 'smart building certifications and rubrics' will be the foundation of a 'functioning market for smart real estate'.
Lecomte has rightly stated that establishing smart building certification under a standardized rubric will be a vital step towards advancing smart buildings (and smart cities), and also aptly brought forth suggestions on doing so. As smart buildings are the building blocks of a successful smart city, having recognised “industry-wide smart building certification levels” will “become a basis” for leaders to fully comprehend and execute their development of smart cities. However, presently, there are no straightforward and comprehensible framework which will allow cities to assess their solutions on developing smart cities. (Lom & Pribyl, 2017) As a reference solution, Lecomte cited the system of “LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification” in green buildings, a well-known green building certification used globally. Developed in the early 2000s, LEED has been thought to be critical in “transforming building practices”, and this emphasises the value for such certification systems. (https://www.usgbc.org/articles/green-building-accelerates-around-world-poised-strong-growth-2021) Likewise, creating an inclusive smart building framework that guides stakeholders through the lifecycle of the smart building also has the potential to positively impact the built environment and allow the cohesive progress towards smart cities.
Lecomte continues by addressing the limitations and inconsistencies in existing indicators in both private and public sectors. Different countries and corporations develop their own smart building indicators, and this is hindering the development of a standardized set of rubric for smart building certification. Indeed, such varying definitions of what a smart building means and the lack of wide-spread market acceptance in existing indicators are obstacles to the development of a standardized rubric. (https://www.facilitiesnet.com/buildingautomation/article/Is-A-Smart-Building-Certification-On-The-Way---17485). With that in mind, efforts have been introduced in recent more recently to develop and “launch the world’s first Intelligent Buildings Index”. (https://www.willowinc.com/2019/06/11/introducing-the-worlds-first-intelligent-buildings-index/). The process of developing this index can potentially deal with the inconsistencies that Lecomte mentioned in his article and help reach a consensus among diverse stakeholders. The index also promises to “ensure that the index stays abreast of latest industry and technological advances.” (https://www.willowinc.com/2019/06/11/introducing-the-worlds-first-intelligent-buildings-index/).
It is important to note, however, that buildings can serve different purposes, such as offices, residential properties, hospitals, just to name a few. . Although across these uses, basic building infrastructure needs (such as energy and water efficiency, trash, security, connectivity, parking management) are identical , smart buildings “must be designed according to the local climate in order to obtain the maximum of benefits”. (https://www.energyintime.eu/smart-buildings-beneficial/). In consideration of that, while a standardized rubric for smart building certification could be developed, in future it could be further expanded to a suite of certificates that may be tailored accordingly to local context or specific needs. This was also practised in the “LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification”, in which a suite of certifications were developed to address the uniqueness of different types of buildings (https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/06/is-leed-tough-enough-for-the-climate-change-era/559478/).
Furthermore, Lecomte underscores the importance of cybersecurity in the development of the standardized certifications under a standardized rubric for smart buildings. Technological leap in recent years has brought together with it the advent of more frequent and highly sophisticated cyber-attacks, and cybersecurity will be a dominant topic for the smart building industry going forward (https://medium.com/@BlueFuture/the-future-of-smart-buildings-top-industry-trends-7ae1afdcce78). Vendors involved in cyber security need to stay ahead of potential threats and take action to prevent cyber-attacks by consistently releasing timely new patches to upgrade their respective security management systems in order to allow their customers to be less susceptible to new methods of cyber-attacks. On the other hand, building operators also need to keep themselves up to date and take the necessary precautions to boost their cybersecurity, “such as improving authorization controls and implementing stronger data encryption, as well as working closely together with their IT department”. (https://medium.com/@BlueFuture/the-future-of-smart-buildings-top-industry-trends-7ae1afdcce78). This would require significant effort from the respective stakeholders. With that in mind, the standardised rubrics implemented and certifications released to respective stakeholders also need to be re-evaluated on a regular basis to ensure relevancy and competency to prevent vulnerabilities.
Finally, to properly build up capabilities in the built industry, there should be an increased emphasis on education to building developers, building users, and the general public. Building developers should have platforms to share insights in conferences to use the standardized framework, be given opportunities to improve on the standardized rubrics from time to time. Building users and the general public should also be made aware of the potential benefits as well as risks involved in the use of smart buildings so that they do not inadvertently allow cyber-threats to take place within the smart buildings.
References:
Lecomte, P. (2019, January 29). Smart buildings: What 'smart' really means. The Business Times. Retrieved September 2019 from: https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/opinion/smart-buildings-what-smart-really-means
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