Sustainability in the Age of Big Data - Urban Land Magazine

In the era of machine learning, blockchain, and the "internet of things" (IoT), Greenprint remains focused on "small data"--monthly energy, water, and waste bills normalized by building and geographic attributes such as square footage, building type, vacancy rates, and heating and cooling degree days. Using Greenprint's shared-data benchmark drawn from these simple data (and managed in the cloud on ULI Greenprint's Measurabl platform), owners can identify which buildings in their portfolio are performing better or worse than the benchmark and spot opportunities for investments in cost-effective technology upgrades, training in best practices (learning from the leaders), and tenant engagement strategies to improve performance. The benchmark also encourages healthy competition among building managers and building portfolio owners, all looking to leverage data to reduce their operating expenses and improve their net operating income (NOI). The Greenprint benchmarking tools are by no means "big data," and this is the way that Greenprint members like it. Over the past nine years, Greenprint members have leveraged these benchmarking data and shared their best practices to cut energy consumption by more than 17 percent and greenhouse gas emissions by more than 20 percent, saving $36.4 million a year in annual energy, water, and waste expenses.