Building Management and Maintenance Systems

Smart buildings technology can help commercial and retail real estate leaders differentiate themselves in the market, but operators still face integration challenges, according to a report by Forrester Consulting and Johnson Controls. 

While smart buildings can help operators manage facilities, provide optimized occupant experiences and reach sustainability and security goals, 73% of sustainability leaders from the retail and commercial real estate sector say their organizations lack the technical expertise to optimize building systems using collected insights, according to an online survey of 3,445 smart buildings leaders conducted in August 2023 by Forrester Consulting.

As a result, technical and strategic partners are needed to help leaders fill expertise gaps and advance smart building initiatives, per the report. To ensure proper implementation, operators must create a road map of near-term and long-term strategic building initiatives that can meet the needs of corporate tenants by prioritizing areas such as energy efficiency, occupant safety and optimized operations, the report says. 

Building insights are increasingly important to organizations as they seek to achieve sustainability, security, health, space optimization and safety goals, with many departments now relying on building data to inform decisions, according to the report, which was commissioned by and developed in collaboration with Johnson Controls. Sixty-five percent of commercial and real estate respondents said a desire to improve security operations is a top driver of smart building investments, while 51% cited physical security concerns as a motivator. 

Optimizing space management is a driving factor for investments among 41% of respondents, while modernizing buildings and reducing carbon emissions were named as key drivers by 40% and 39% of respondents, respectively. Over 60% of respondents pointed to the potential for smart building technology to reduce costs, accelerate sustainability initiatives and drive business growth.

“The business case for smart and sustainable buildings should drive the alignment necessary for the move toward smarter buildings,” Vijay Sankaran, vice president and chief technology officer at Johnson Controls, said in an email. “By leveraging technology and analytics, organizations can identify areas of improvement, implement energy-saving measures and reduce their carbon footprint. The results are twofold: reduced emissions and substantial cost savings.”

Only 13% of commercial and retail real estate leaders believe their building systems and equipment are fully integrated, however. A lack of integrated data and insights is adversely impacting operations, revenue and brand perceptions, with 62% of leaders saying they contend with decreased operating efficiency as a result. Further, 57% said they face increased regulatory penalties due to a lack of integration. 

Smart building solutions can unite data from all systems and equipment, automatically alerting and adjusting environments for safety and efficiency, while making it easier to capture insights that can guide decisions and recommendations, the report says. Over 70% of retail and commercial real estate respondents said they struggle with using captured insights to optimize their building systems and achieve their top goals, however. 

As a result, retail and commercial real estate leaders are seeking smart building solution partners that can offer deep integration abilities, industry experience and user-friendly platforms, Forrester says. Owners and operators especially want advanced technology from their smart building partners, with 79% of respondents noting that using the latest technology is a “valuable” or “extremely valuable” attribute in a partner. 

“It’s critical to future-proof technology. Facilities managers should look for advanced edge solutions to connect devices, equipment and control systems, simplifying integrations as technology changes,” Sankaran said. “Digital twin technologies enable an immersive analysis of your locations, events, assets and people, predicting outcomes in real time. And tools to monitor and continuously improve the quality of data and analytics.”

Approximately 70% of respondents said they looked for partners that can provide a single digital platform across all sites and use cases, as well as ease of use for cross-departmental stakeholders, end-to-end expertise or seamless integration with existing systems.

“Given the complexity of smart buildings, and the fact that they generate a massive amount of data that facility managers will need to understand and analyze, facility managers should plan to partner with technology experts,” Sankaran said. “This could include an internal IT department, external consultants, or a technology vendor that can provide guidance and support for implementing and managing smart building technologies.”

Sustainability remains a key business priority in the sector, with 72% of retail and commercial real estate organizations setting carbon reduction goals across their building portfolios to above 75% by 2030, according to the survey. Sustainability and health goals are driving real estate leaders' preference for smart building technology that can advance building sustainability goals, enhance transparency in reporting and boost the appeal of real estate portfolios to tenants and buyers, Forrester says. 

The report notes that properties with green certificates or energy efficiency labels achieve an average of 6.3% higher rental incomes, 6% higher occupancy rates and a 14.8% higher sales price than those without these certificates or labels.

JM Electrical has completed its installation of a building management system at Boston Logan International Airport as part of the airport’s modernization effort in Terminal E.

The BMS at Terminal E will monitor and control building services, including HVAC, lighting and plumbing systems, and help to streamline operations, improve occupant comfort and optimize energy use, JM Electrical said in a news release this month. 

The Boston-based electrical contractor said the building management system would not only ensure that Terminal E’s systems operate “seamlessly,” but also contribute to the airport terminal’s sustainability and efficiency goals. 

Airports consume large amounts of power. In the face of electrification efforts, power demand is expected to nearly double from 2023 levels by 2030, according to a case study of two other U.S. airports conducted by Enterprise Mobility, Xcel Energy and Jacobs. However, airports have not necessarily been able to achieve energy savings due to legacy building management systems that have not been able to fully utilize sensor data, with existing systems being disparate and disconnected, according to a blog post on L&T Technology Services. 

Boston Logan’s Terminal E modernization project intends to respond to sustainability and energy efficiency needs, with the building now operating displacement ventilation systems, electrochromic view glass, water-efficient fixtures and waste management systems. 

Spanning 390,000 square feet of new and shared space, the project involved adding four aircraft gate piers, 16 new ticket counters and enhanced baggage processing facilities, with amenities that include a modern hold room, lounge spaces, a pet relief area and a mothers’ room, according to the Massachusetts Port Authority, which owns and manages the airport. The $33 million project has been partly funded by an Airport Terminal Program grant from the Federal Aviation Administration. 

Massport’s sustainability goals involve reaching net-zero emissions by 2031 across facilities it owns as well as equipment and purchased electricity. In its Roadmap to Net Zero plan, measures to achieve these goals involve improving energy efficiency in buildings through design standards and operational controls as well as generating on-site renewable energy and making off-site renewable energy purchases. Other measures include acquiring renewable energy credits and carbon offsets for fossil fuel sources that cannot be reduced, electrified or switched to renewable energy in the near term. 

Completing the building management system at Boston Logan’s Terminal E “marks a significant achievement in the enhancement of international travel infrastructure in the Greater Boston Area,” JM Electrical said in the release. 

The airport opened the renovated Terminal E in late 2023 with a new glass building, alongside electrification stations and advanced interior and exterior building systems aimed at minimizing the facility’s carbon footprint, according to AECOM, which served as a prime consultant and architect for the expansion effort.

JM Electrical said it “played a pivotal role” in the expansive new building and the terminal’s overall renovation in collaboration with Automated Logic Contracting. 

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By Gordian

The healthcare industry faces mounting pressure to optimize resources, enhance patient satisfaction, and deliver high-quality care. In this challenging environment, facility managers play a crucial role in ensuring that healthcare facilities are safe, efficient, and conducive to healing.

According to Gordian's survey of nearly 70 healthcare facilities leaders, 100% of administrators reported that their organizations have at least some degree of understanding when it comes to facilities issues. However, there's a considerable variation in the depth of that understanding. 38% believe facilities merely serve clinical priorities, while 36% see them as mission-critical. Worryingly, 26% feel that facilities are treated as an afterthought.

"Data is the foundation of any facilities decision-making process. An unstable foundation leaves the entire organization vulnerable to potential risks," states Gordian's recent survey report.

Respondents to the survey cited obstacles such as incomplete data (38%), inconsistent data collection (32%), a lack of resources to collect and analyze data (26%), and disparate datasets that don’t sync (26%). While concerning, these responses highlight the massive potential for organizations to leverage their data more effectively.

To help healthcare organizations navigate these challenges, Gordian has developed the "Building Trust Capital Resource Hub," a comprehensive collection of resources designed to empower healthcare facility managers.

Key resources include:

• "Safeguarding Healthcare Facilities: Overcoming the Risk of Inaction" eBook: This in-depth guide provides actionable strategies for addressing deferred maintenance, optimizing resource allocation, and mitigating risks.
• "Cultivating Healthcare Transformation: Becoming an Agent of Change" eBook: This resource equips facility managers with the skills and knowledge to advocate for facility needs, secure resources, and drive meaningful change within their organizations. It draws on the survey of nearly 70 healthcare facility leaders to provide insights into shared challenges and effective strategies.
• "7 Steps to Building Trust Capital" checklist and webinar: This practical resource outlines seven key steps to building trust capital, enhancing patient confidence, and improving staff morale. The checklist and webinar provide a clear framework for facility managers to implement these steps and achieve tangible results.
• "Decarbonize Healthcare Facilities" podcast: This podcast explores innovative approaches to reducing environmental impact and creating sustainable healthcare facilities. Industry experts share their insights and best practices to help healthcare organizations achieve their sustainability goals.

By accessing the Building Trust Capital Resource Hub, healthcare facility managers can gain valuable insights and practical tools to:

• Improve operational efficiency: Streamline workflows, optimize resource allocation, and reduce operational costs.
• Enhance patient satisfaction: Create a safe, comfortable, and healing environment that promotes positive patient experiences.
• Ensure regulatory compliance: Stay ahead of evolving regulations and maintain a safe and compliant facility.
• Drive sustainability initiatives: Reduce environmental impact and contribute to a healthier planet.

Facilities management teams can combat growing work orders, shrinking budgets, a shortage of qualified staff and tighter margins this year by implementing software automation and other innovative technologies, per a report from JLL released Tuesday. 

Over 55% of facilities management leaders believe work order volumes in 2024 will increase compared with 2023 levels, according to more than 230 respondents surveyed by JLL. The anticipated increase in work order volumes will challenge the 42.6% of respondents who reported their facilities management teams as understaffed, driving the need for facilities management software that can automate repetitive, labor-led tasks, JLL says.

Software automation can currently accelerate 80% of facilities management workflows, however, JLL says. Automating processes such as work order request assignments can help address understaffing issues, making it crucial for facility managers to leverage software and related technology to accelerate work order completion, achieve cost savings, ensure compliance and raise team performance, according to the firm’s 2024 State of Facilities Management Technology report. 

The mass retirement of older facility managers that began in 2018 is expected to leave thousands of facilities management positions unfilled through the end of the decade, JLL says. For facilities management teams that reported being understaffed, relief is unlikely to come soon, with 64.8% of respondents listing hiring freezes and budget constraints as major barriers to achieving full staffing, according to the report. 

Other obstacles include an “ongoing war for talent,” especially at the managerial level, pushing 35.7% of respondents to name a lack of well-qualified candidates as an impediment to hiring additional facilities management staff. Twenty percent said limited funds for ongoing staff training and development pose a challenge, while 13.5% noted that a competitive job market has driven up hiring costs. 

To meet the growth in work orders with fewer staff, 39.6% of facilities managers expect to increase their investment in facilities management software this year, while 44.8% said they expect their investment in such software to stay the same and nearly 5% cited expectations of a decline, the report says.

Half of facilities management teams said implementing proactive management of work orders is their number one software priority, as it is proven to be cheaper, quicker and safer than reactive repairs over the long term, JLL says. 

As operators turn to proactive maintenance, they should work to reduce reactive repairs, as is best practice, according to the report. HVAC repair was the most common reactive work order category for 71.7% of respondents, followed by plumbing and electrical repairs for 53.9% and 27.4% of respondents, respectively. These areas are thus “prime candidates for preventive maintenance schedules, which can easily be set up inside FM software,” JLL says. 

Meanwhile, automating facilities management tasks is the number one outcome that 27.4% of respondents said they expect from implementing work order management software.

Work order management software that can provide analytics and insights for identifying and addressing inefficiencies was a top choice for 20.9% of respondents who noted that such data can also help boost team performance. Likewise, an equal proportion of respondents said ensuring work completion in compliance with regulations and service-level agreements is a top outcome they expect from work order management software. Respondents also said mobile applications with augmented reality can help field technicians proactively anticipate maintenance needs and tap into predictive maintenance to avert downtime and unscheduled maintenance work, improving efficiency and cutting costs. 

The frequency of reactive maintenance varies by industry, however, per the report. While plumbing is the most common reactive work order for restaurants, the highest percentage of janitorial work was for education, which also ranked lowest in reactive repairs for HVAC, per the report. 

Federal agencies can save $100 million or more by using predictive models to make investment decisions on deferred maintenance and repair work for federal buildings and structures, according to a May 15 federal government report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Additionally, agencies can garner savings of $10 million or more over the next five years if they set building utilization benchmarks that can help identify and reduce underused office space, per the report, which outlines 112 new matters and recommendations in 42 topic areas that can help Congress and federal agencies achieve savings while improving government programs and activities. 

Federal agencies have long since struggled to manage their large portfolios and determine how much office space they needed to fulfill their missions efficiently, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the report says. The GAO said these challenges have driven their need to defer maintenance and repairs and that failing to keep up with these much needed repairs and investments can cause unplanned interruptions to facility systems and components over time, worsening the condition of the agencies’ assets and leading to premature replacement. 

Last November, the GAO reported that estimates for deferred maintenance and repairs in federal buildings rose about 83% to $48.7 billion in 2022 from $26.6 billion in 2017 for the U.S. Department of Energy, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of the Interior and the U.S. General Services Administration. Officials from these agencies attributed these increases to various factors, including funding constraints, labor and material cost escalations and the quality of the agencies’ physical assets. 

The GAO recommended that the DOE, DOI and HHS evaluate the possibility of increasing their use of simulation models that can predict the outcome of investments, analyze tradeoffs and inform decision making to effectively allocate resources among various investment options. “For example, an agency could use modeling to achieve cost efficiencies by determining the optimum time to make maintenance investments,” the report says.

The DOE, which neither agreed nor disagreed with the GAO’s recommendation, had cited plans to establish a working group for developing methods to address the recommendation. As of March 2024, agency officials said the department’s working group has continued to discuss potential corrective actions, per the May 15 report. 

The DOI and the HHS agreed with the GAO’s recommendation. The DOI said it is coordinating with its bureaus to review the availability and benefits of lifecycle investment models and evaluate alternatives for implementation. The HHS acknowledged that models used for investments in its real property portfolio may face limitations due to the diverse missions carried out in different facilities, but said it is considering how to implement the recommended models.

Based on cost savings identified in its prior work, the GAO estimates that such predictive models can cut an agency’s deferred maintenance and repair backlog, helping the DOE, DOI and HHS to make cost effective investments that can address a cumulative backlog of over $40 billion, potentially saving $100 million or more, the report says. 

Furthermore, federal agencies have been struggling with excess and underutilized space, exacerbated by the rise of telework since the COVID-19 pandemic. New benchmarks accounting for greater levels of telework can help agencies downsize the office space they don’t need, avoiding significant environmental and financial costs, the GAO says in the report. While the GAO says related savings are uncertain and may vary within and across agencies, it cites estimates of a 1% cost reduction in reduced lease space that can lead to potential savings of $10 million or more over five years. 

In October, the GAO recommended that the Office of Management and Budget take charge of developing benchmarks for measuring building utilization levels that account for more telework. As of March 2024, the OMB reported that it had established a working group to start developing benchmarks, the report notes.

Last September, the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved a package of bills aimed at tackling the federal office space utilization problem. The committee said the legislation would require the GSA to provide monthly updates on occupancy and actual utilization rates, as well as annual reporting, in its occupancy agreements.

HelixIntel is introducing a computerized maintenance management system as a key component of PropertyOS, its cloud-based platform that integrates maintenance management with strategic asset control and real-time data analytics.

The new CMMS is designed to perform preventive maintenance, minimize equipment downtime and automate intricate workflows, helping businesses of all sizes to manage critical assets, the company said in a May 8 news release. 

“Every stakeholder benefits when [an] equipment breakdown is accurately predicted and prevented,” HelixIntel CEO Jon DeWald said in a statement. DeWald noted that the company is facilitating proactive maintenance and equipment upgrades that can not only reduce downtime, but also boost efficiency and generate cost savings.

Facilities managers have been grappling with expensive repairs of critical building assets as well as high costs of parts and labor, with more than half of manufacturing and facilities maintenance professionals naming downtime and breakdowns, aging infrastructure and skill shortages as top challenges, according to a 2024 industry report from CMMS provider Limble. 

Against that backdrop, preventative maintenance strategies are increasingly gaining momentum given their ability to generate insights into the reliability of assets and their help in budgeting for capital expenses and upgrades, while streamlining maintenance operations and property management workflows. Of the 252 maintenance professionals surveyed by Limble, 90% of facilities management respondents named preventative maintenance as the number one way to combat these challenges. 

By integrating property and asset management data, HelixIntel says it can help organizations predict and prevent equipment failures, mitigate costly breakdowns and enhance capital decision making. After concluding a Series A funding round last June, HelixIntel evolved its asset management platform into a dynamic CMMS, now known as PropertyOS, the company said in its release. 

HelixIntel said the CMMS platform can automate maintenance schedules, work orders, asset tracking and inventory management, in turn helping managers organize, track and oversee maintenance, repairs and other work requests. 

The platform is also able to enrich asset data with photos, comments and nameplate information, generate a digital record to help detect troubling trends, and provide predictive analytics and proactive maintenance capabilities that can help operators identify potential equipment failures before they occur, per the release. This reduces risks, boosts asset performance and strengthens building reliability, HelixIntel said. 

Regardless of previous reliance on paperwork spreadsheets or a tech-enabled solution, the new CMMS can also absorb available data to “offer a turn-key experience for users interested in pre-loaded data,” the company said. 

HelixIntel joins a growing list of companies that have launched new CMMS products or raised funds to scale their portfolios and expand their share in an industry that demands cost-efficient maintenance tools. 

Last December, MarginPoint launched a new CMMS targeting government, university and commercial real estate managers, while MaintainX secured $50 million to embed its maintenance and work execution platform with AI-driven predictive capabilities, asset health insights and resource planning. Goldman Sachs also led a $58 million Series B round for Limble, enabling the company to scale its product portfolio.

Facilitron is expanding its partnership with Orange County Public Schools, the eighth largest U.S. school district, which serves over 200,000 students, by implementing its Facilitron Works computerized maintenance management system.

The CMMS, which OCPS deployed in June, replaces three different software systems the central Florida district previously used for maintenance work orders, said Facilitron CEO Jeff Benjamin.

The deployment will further streamline and enhance the management of OCPS’ facilities, optimizing operations across the district’s 900-square-mile area and boosting the efficiency of maintaining its physical assets, Facilitron said.

The partnership between Facilitron and OCPS, which began in 2020, initially focused on Facilitron’s flagship product, Facilitron S&R, for scheduling and managing facility rentals. Over time, this relationship grew to incorporate Facilitron BAS, a building automation system that integrates HVAC schedules and other building systems with Facilitron S&R, per the release.

As part of the five-month rollout, Facilitron teams were on site in the district in the weeks before and after deployment to train administrators, supervisors, maintenance workers and staff, Benjamin said.

Within a month of its launch, thousands of Facilitron Works users in the OCPS district have created more than 15,000 work orders, and over 400 workers have been added to the district’s three maintenance regions, Facilitron said. Technicians have logged more than 20,000 labor hours completing over 4,000 work orders to date.

At OCPS, the Facilitron Works app replaces WNA, SAP and EasyVista for maintenance work orders, Benjamin said. 

EasyVista was used to track some maintenance work orders despite being primarily configured for information technology work, while SAP — which the district primarily uses for finance functions — was receiving significant numbers of duplicate work orders first entered in WNA, he said.

“There was literally a team of people whose job it was to enter work orders from WNA to SAP,” Benjamin said. “They may still port some information to SAP, but not nearly what they previously had to do.” 

Nationwide, school facilities managers have been contending with aging infrastructure, staffing issues, equipment breakdowns and delays in repairs and maintenance. The findings of a survey of 1,625 U.S. public schools conducted by the National Center for Educational Statistics earlier this year reflect long-standing concerns among policy officials over the conditions of older school facilities and the need to replace multiple building systems, including HVAC units.

The shift to Facilitron Works will enable more effective coordination of maintenance and operations tasks, including work orders, asset management and preventive maintenance, with features that enable more targeted access to work orders and direct assignment of work orders, Facilitron said. 

OCPS’ Facilitron Works deployment will involve using a newer “partitioning” feature that allows OCPS to segregate the system into the three geographical regions and four separate departments, creating seven parallel systems, according to Benjamin. That allows users in one region or department to review relevant data without having to work through data from other regions or departments, he said. 

The Facilitron Works deployment marks the first time OCPS maintenance workers have had a mobile app, which they can use to receive, execute and close work order assignments, he said. In addition, facilities managers can use the app to auto-assign orders to different trades, workers or supervisors, and upload photos to complement written work order descriptions, replacing a system that offered no way to assign work orders, he said.

Facilitron Works also has a GPS feature that shows shared work orders by location. OCPS finds this capability beneficial because it allows workers to determine whether to pick up work assigned to others while they are at the relevant location, enabling district staff to better manage their time, Benjamin said.

OCPS is adopting Facilitron Works at a time of significant growth for the CMMS industry. Last year, CMMS provider Limble raised $58 million in a funding round led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s growth equity fund. In May, HelixIntel announced a new CMMS solution as a key part of its PropertyOS software platform, while CMMS startup NodaFi secured $3.5 million in seed funding in July, with a goal of doubling its employee head count and booking a 500% revenue increase this year. 

In June, Facilitron announced updates to Facilitron Works, including an AI-powered function that would allow staff and school administrators to review and eliminate possible duplicate orders and leverage previous work orders to produce more accurate maintenance requests.

Ecotrak has introduced a suite of inventory, dispatch and technician management solutions for its facilities management platform that is designed to provide multisite businesses with real-time visibility to inventory levels, dispatch operations and internal technician activities. 

The tools offer operators insights into which components or parts are being used for specific orders and assets, real-time location sharing services for internal technicians, forecasts on labor demand and reorder needs based on usage analytics, mobile access to information and automated order creation, tracking and fulfillment services, according to the company’s news release Monday. 

"A lack of visibility into inventory levels, technician activities, and asset performance across multiple locations often leads to inefficiencies and unplanned downtime of assets,” Ecotrak CEO Matt Singer said in an email. “Without real-time data and analytics, businesses struggle to optimize resource allocation, resulting in excess inventory, underutilized technicians, and higher maintenance costs.” 

Supply chain disruptions and labor shortages rank among the top three risks to facilities management procurement operations, according to CBRE’s 2024 Facilities Management Procurement Perspectives report. To combat these risks and mitigate rising costs — including those associated with HVAC maintenance and mechanical, electrical and plumbing contractor services — 15% of respondents in CBRE’s survey said they are implementing service-level optimization, while 8% said they are “leveraging innovation” or implementing “smart contracting."  

The Irvine, California-based Ecotrak, which announced last month that it had raised $30 million to accelerate its go-to-market efforts, aims to help enterprise owners and operators with these challenges through its web and mobile application-based platform. The software-as-a-service platform combines automation, predictive analytics and granular, asset-specific data with a large network of service providers, the company said last month. 

For businesses operating across multiple locations and warehouses, effectively managing inventory levels, dispatch schedules and technician workflows is crucial for ensuring equipment uptime and efficiencies, Ecotrak said in the news release Monday. 

By analyzing usage data, businesses can not only forecast labor demand and reorder needs, but also identify underutilized assets or technicians for better reallocation, it said.

The newly launched solutions can also streamline inventory management through automated order creation, tracking and fulfillment, while reducing manual errors through “digitized inventory,” Ecotrak said. 

“Automated inventory management, stock distribution across locations, and optimized technician dispatch based on skills and proximity help minimize excess inventory costs and streamline maintenance workflows," Daniel Castleman, director of product management at Ecotrak, said in an email.

Additional features in the new suite of tools include low stock and urgent task notifications, which help prevent stockouts and unscheduled maintenance, and the ability to identify underutilized assets and technicians so that operators can reallocate resources more efficiently, the company said in the release. 

Singer says Ecotrak is targeting multisite businesses with over 20 locations, particularly in the restaurant, convenience store, grocery, gym and retail industries.

The company said its customers include Dave & Buster’s, Dutch Bros Coffee and franchise companies Inspire Brands and Flynn Restaurant Group. Restaurants owned by Inspire Brands include Arby’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Sonic Drive-In and Dunkin’ Donuts, while Flynn Restaurant Group’s brands encompass Applebee’s, Taco Bell, Panera, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s and Planet Fitness. 

Akila, a company that produces “digital twins” for building management and sustainability optimization, formed a strategic partnership with Deloitte to offer a decarbonization software solution for their shared clients, Akila announced Wednesday. 

Akila builds digital twins, or virtual recreations of physical objects, and centralizes building management data to help companies understand things like their energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, internal environmental quality and more. 

The partnership was spurred by the increase in ESG-related disclosure regulations and will give customers access to Akila’s building data as well as Deloitte professionals who can help with analysis or strategic plans, according to the press release.

The market for digital twins is expected to grow more than tenfold between 2023-28, according to an estimate by Markets and Markets.

Virtual copies of physical objects, which give businesses greater flexibility to simulate operations for things like supply chain and facilities management, was a $10 billion market in 2023 and is expected to reach $110 billion by 2028, according to the business intelligence research firm. Akila said it has made digital twins of more than 100 million square feet of built environment.

Akila Chief Sustainability Officer Mark Bawtree said in the press release that the partnership is “a significant step forward” in the software company’s goal “to drive sustainability in the built environment through data-driven insights and strategic guidance.”

“By combining Akila’s advanced digital twin technology with Deloitte’s service offerings, we can help organizations across the United States to take decisive action toward reducing their carbon footprints, optimizing energy consumption, and enhancing operational efficiency,” he said.

Akila said its real-time data monitoring and benchmarking will provide clients access to comparative analysis and forecasting tools that can be used to keep track of their ESG and sustainability goals. The digital twin platform will allow customers to experiment with their building data and simulate how capital projects will have future impacts on their energy, emissions and company value before deciding to invest, per Akila.

Companies that improve their building management have an opportunity to increase their asset value and reduce their energy use, according to Nathan Florio, the leader of Deloitte’s sustainability, climate and equity real estate team. Florio said in the release that the partnership will allow the two companies’ shared clients to “transform their built environments into more sustainable and efficient assets.

U.S. companies are facing upcoming climate regulations like the Securities and Exchange Commission’s climate-risk disclosure rule, the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and others, both domestically and internationally. Though the SEC rule is currently stayed, pending legal challenges, and non-EU companies have until 2026 to comply with the CSRD, this delay has largely not slowed companies’ preparation for compliance. 

Erin Martin, a partner at Morgan Lewis, recently told attendees at an ESG Dive event to “not sit and wait for the courts to decide.” Martin, who previously spent over a decade at the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, said companies “need to start preparing now” to comply with the growing landscape of disclosures.

A recent Deloitte survey of business leaders at companies with at least $500 million in revenue found that nearly all respondents — 98% — meet quarterly to discuss sustainability goals, while half of the 300 respondents reported they were investing in new resources to enhance the reporting and measurement of their greenhouse gas emissions.