Digital twins of buildings can contribute to the reduction of environmental carbon emissions

Buildings are responsible for approximately 40% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. A recent white paper, entitled "Decarbonizing the Built World: A Call to Action," argues that digital twins could be the most effective technology for reducing energy consumption, conserving natural resources, and cutting emissions in the building sector.

The authors of the paper underline the importance of performance-based digital twins in implementing a data-driven approach to reduce carbon emissions at every stage of a building's life cycle. This includes operational emissions, like energy use for lighting and heating, and also embodied emissions arising from the materials used in construction, like concrete and steel. These digital twins have the potential to predict and monitor a building's performance and suggest ways to enhance it.  For this purpose, they are supported by reliable physics-based simulations and smart building technologies, e.g. IoT sensors and analytics.

In a podcast, John Turner and Anil Sawhney, two of the six authors, discussed the case of adopting digital twins in building management. Turner points out that many environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives championed by corporations and governments lack substantial follow-through. This has led to skepticism about ESG investing and accusations of greenwashing by companies not meeting their commitments.

The authors of the white paper aim to bridge this gap by providing practical guidance based on their industry experience, since they are both professionals in the architectural, engineering, and construction industry. They stress that simply measuring a building's environmental impact is insufficient. Instead, they advocate for the integration of predictive tools, a crucial component of advanced digital twins, to enable closed-loop analysis and facilitate not only performance assessment but also actionable insights for improvement.

Furthermore, the authors highlight the need for multiple digital twins and the creation of a digital thread to correlate these twins and other data sources over time. While more attention has been given to reducing operational carbon emissions than to embodied carbon emissions, the authors argue that both aspects should be addressed. They note that in existing buildings, interventions like equipment replacement or roof refurbishment can still reduce carbon impact.

However, their primary focus is on reusing existing buildings rather than recycling materials, as recycling still involves carbon release and replacement consumption. The authors also stress that refurbishing existing structures may be a more environmentally friendly option than constructing entirely new ones, even if new buildings appear cheaper to heat and cool.

The white paper includes recommendations for establishing a new role called the owner's performance advocate, who would manage the digital building's lifecycle alongside the owner's representative responsible for the early stages of conventional building management. It is mentioned, that the podcast covers additional topics, e.g. how digital twins can aid in ESG reporting, the main barriers to widespread adoption of digital twins in the industry, and whether digital twins contribute more emissions than they reduce.