BSRIA launches White Paper on 'Megatrends: Smart Building Technology'November 2018

Henry Lawson Market Research Consultant

BSRIA is delighted to have launched its White Paper on ‘Megatrends: Smart Building Technology’. As a leading international industry body concerned with building services, BSRIA has always taken a keen interest in “new and emerging technologies” and their potential impact on the built environment.

Each age most likely believes that it faces unprecedented changes and challenges, but this time it may actually be true.

The general consensus emerging from the White Paper is that technology is in the process of transforming almost every aspect of society, with change happening at an “accelerating rate”. This is possible because of simultaneous rapid advances in several key areas of technology.

Henry Lawson, BSRIA’s Senior Market Research Consultant, BSRIA’s World Market Intelligence Division commented:

“The spread of computerised systems into almost all areas of society has resulted in an explosion in the sheer volume of data generated. While not all of this data will be stored in an accessible format, the numbers involved are prodigious.

And internet-based commerce is already transforming the world of physical retail, replacing much of the traditional high street as we have known it. Web-based social media is already having a profound effect on commerce, politics and other social interactions. Indeed: current developments in technology could well have a much broader political and economic impact.

Technological changes have always impacted on employment opportunities, typically reducing or eliminating demand for some skills while creating new opportunities. Revolutions in AI and in robotics now mean that even quite skilled jobs could be performed by machines in the near-future, raising the bar that a human has to jump to be seen as superior to a machine. This is likely to make the availability and the quality of the education available critically important.”

Concluding:

“Almost all of these technological revolutions are having or will have a big impact on construction and building services. Every aspect is likely to change from the way buildings are constructed to the way they are managed and interact with the people using them as well as with the world outside.

Buildings will be part of the technological revolution but will also be competing with all other sectors of society to gain access to the skills and investment needed to make them fulfil their potential.

There has never been a more exciting time to be in the industry.”

‘Megatrends: Smart Building Technology’ White Paper published in 2018 is available (as a free copy) in combination with the purchase of additional BSRIA studies.

Look out for:

  • Smart Building Controls Study.
  • Data Analytics for Building Services Study.

  • EMEA sales enquiries contact: BSRIA UK: wmi@bsria.co.uk ¦ +44 (0) 1344 465 540
  • American sales enquiries contact: BSRIA USA: sales@bsria.com ¦ +1 312 753 6800
  • China sales enquiries contact: BSRIA China: bsria@bsria.com.cn ¦ +86 10 6465 7707

In 2015, The McKinsey Global Institute published ‘No Ordinary Disruption’, which examined ‘The Four Global Forces Breaking all the Trends’.

The four key trends which this book pointed to which are already impacting on almost every society, or will do soon, are:

  • Urbanisation.
  • The revolution in technology.
  • Demographics and an ageing population.
  • Globalisation.

Urbanisation has been available since 2017. To complete the series, the white papers on Demographics and on Globalisation will be published within the next few months.

While most people recognise that each of these is already having a major impact, BSRIA has set out to provide its own take on these major movements and to focus on what they mean for building services and related activities, globally.

Complementing the white papers on the four key trends, two further white papers emerged from two industry workshops held in Las Vegas (January 2017) and Frankfurt (March 2017). It distilled a consensus view of the potential for deploying wearable technology in connection with smart buildings in general and relating to HVAC in particular.

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