Draft #2 Summary_ReaderResponse: Smart buildings: What 'smart' really means

In the article “Smart buildings: What 'smart' really means”, Lecomte (2019) states that having certification with standardized rubrics 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 rubrics to assess smart buildings but their rubrics vary from one another. However, current private and public rubrics 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'.


While Lecomte stated his case for establishing smart building certification under standardized rubrics, discussed inconsistencies in current indicators and the importance of cybersecurity, he did not propose concrete proposals to fully address the challenges.


First of all, Lecomte mentioned the need for “common standards and metrics” in smart building certifications, given their importance in smart cities. He also cited the success of globally recognised green building certification, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. This view is shared by Smeenk (2018) who stated in an article that recognized “industry-wide smart building certification levels” will “become the basis” for leaders to understand and develop smart cities. In addition, LEED has been thought to be critical in “transforming building practices” for the last 25 years by the U.S. Green Building Council (Long, 2018), and this emphasises the value for such a standardized certification system. Thus, like the use of LEED certification for green buildings, standardizing the metrics and rubrics for smart building certification has the potential to positively impact the built environment and accelerate the progress towards smart cities.


Secondly, Lecomte highlighted the inconsistencies in smart building indicators used by different countries and corporations, which hampered the development of a standardized set of rubrics and metrics for smart building certification. In a research paper published by the Czech Technical University in Prague (Lom & Pribyl, 2017), it was acknowledged that there are no straightforward and comprehensible framework which will allow cities to assess the benefits of their smart city solutions. Sullivan (2018) also suggested that varying definitions of smart buildings as well as the lack of wide-spread acceptance of existing indicators are key obstacles to the development of a standardized building certification programme. It appears to be a rather collective view that the road towards smart building certification with standardized metrics and rubrics will need considerable effort.


Thirdly, although Lecomte listed the importance for consistent smart building rubrics and metrics, he did not suggest specific proposals on how to drive efforts to introduce a “universal framework”. For instance, a possible solution is the recent push to develop and “launch the world’s first Intelligent Buildings Index” (Willow, 2019). This effort is being led by International Intelligent Buildings Organisation and will use “a state-of-the-art literature review, international stakeholder engagement and calibration against a global spectrum of “smart” buildings” (Willow, 2019). The index also promises to “ensure that the index stays abreast of latest industry and technological advances” (Willow, 2019). The process of developing this index can potentially deal with the inconsistencies that Lecomte mentioned in his article and help unify views of diverse stakeholders.


Lastly, Lecomte underscored the importance of considering cybersecurity in the standardized rubric for smart buildings, but once again did not provide examples on how to do it. It is well known that cybersecurity will be a dominant topic for the smart building industry going forward and that technological leaps in recent years have brought about the advent of more frequent and highly sophisticated cyber-attacks (Blue Future Partners, 2018). In view of that, there are a few possible ways the smart building rubric can recognise and address these cyber threats. For instance, smart building vendors involved in cybersecurity need to be audited for their ability to stay ahead of potential cyber threats by consistently releasing timely new patches to upgrade their respective security management systems (Cyber Security Hub, 2018). Also, building operators need to be reminded through the rubrics to take the necessary precautions to boost their cybersecurity, such as "improving authorization controls and implementing stronger data encryption” (Blue Future Partners, 2018).


In conclusion, Lecomte’s article mentioned the importance of having smart building certification with standardized rubrics and metrics in the development of smart cities and listed key contributors hindering its development. However, he did not fully address how a “universal framework” can be developed. Furthermore, Lecomte also stated the need to consider cybersecurity in the smart building rubrics, but missed out suggestions on how to do so.

References:

Lecomte, P. (2019, January 29). Smart buildings: What 'smart' really means. The Business Times. Retrieved from: https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/opinion/smart-buildings-what-smart-really-means

Smeenk, H. G. (2018, March 12). The smart way to smart cities begins with buildings. Smart Buildings Magazine. Retrieved from: http://www.smartbuildingsmagazine.com/features/the-smart-way-to-smart-cities-begins-with-buildings

Lom, M., & Pribyl, O. (2017). Smаrt City Evaluation Framework (SMACEF): Is a Smart City Solution Beneficial for Your City?. Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, 15(3), 60-65.

Blue Future Partners. (2018). The Future of Smart Buildings - Top Industry Trends. Medium. Retrieved from: https://medium.com/@BlueFuture/the-future-of-smart-buildings-top-industry-trends-7ae1afdcce78

Cyber Security Hub. (2018). The Importance Of Vendor Risk Management. Retrieved from: https://www.cshub.com/attacks/articles/the-importance-of-vendor-risk-management

Long, M. (2018). Green Building Accelerates Around the World, Poised for Strong Growth by 2021. U.S. Green Building Council. Retrieved from: https://www.usgbc.org/articles/green-building-accelerates-around-world-poised-strong-growth-2021

Sullivan, E. (2018). Is A Smart Building Certification On The Way?. Facilitiesnet. Retrieved from: https://www.facilitiesnet.com/buildingautomation/article/Is-A-Smart-Building-Certification-On-The-Way---17485

Willow. (2019). Introducing the world’s first Intelligent Buildings Index. Retrieved from: https://www.willowinc.com/2019/06/11/introducing-the-worlds-first-intelligent-buildings-index/