The OECD's latest report, Global Monitoring of Policies for Decarbonising Buildings, emphasizes the pressing need to address building emissions to tackle climate protection issues. Buildings account for close to 70% of CO₂ emissions in major cities. Therefore, decarbonization requires governments to focus on "low-hanging fruit" strategies to get impactful results at environmentally feasible timescales. Experts warn that focusing on high-cost technologies and neglecting existing digital solutions can slow down progress.
“While we do need regulatory measures to deal with decarbonization, there’s no time to rely on those alone,” says Donatas Karčiauskas, CEO of Exergio, a company that provides AI-based solutions for energy efficiency in buildings. “Deep retrofits could take up to 10 years for large buildings complexes, so we need to shift our strategy: identify immediate and feasible digital solutions and focus on most energy-consuming buildings.”
The OECD report identifies two primary factors that should help in choosing which buildings to prioritize–feasibility and impact.
Feasibility determines buildings where resources, knowledge, and management already exist. The most feasible group represents public or large non-residential buildings, where governments and businesses can swiftly make cost-efficient energy-related improvements by eliminating expensive infrastructure changes.
Feasibility alone is not enough, and the impact factor has to be met, too. Large commercial buildings, such as business centers and shopping malls, consume more energy than residential building complexes. As a consequence, countries focusing on energy-hungry structures will reduce emissions faster.
“We have already applied what the report suggests in reality, and results in commercial properties deliver up to 30% energy waste reductions,” noted Karčiauskas. “For example, our work in Poznań, Poland, achieved €80,000 in savings in less than a year, along with a 20% reduction in energy waste. While OECD’s report talks about certain success stories in Sweden and Japan, we see that similar solutions can work everywhere in the world.”
Japan and Sweden provide relevant case studies on implementing the low-hanging fruits strategy.
Tokyo is outlined as an example of how cities and countries can use the impact factor. Tokyo first measured environmental impact through its cap-and-trade program, launched in 2010. This initiative enforced mandatory emissions targets for the city's largest emitters, which were commercial and industrial facilities.
At that time, they accounted for nearly 40% of Tokyo's total emissions. In 4 years, the program helped cut building emissions by 23%.
Sweden primarily aimed to cut carbon emissions at the beginning of the construction phase, reducing carbon-heavy materials before expanding to other parts of the building lifecycle. So far, the country has reduced CO2 emissions by 30% from the construction sector since the implementation of its decarbonization strategy.
“While different, Japan’s and Sweden’s models highlight the benefits of targeted, high-impact actions. Starting with non-residential buildings or the construction phase creates a solid foundation for broader efforts,” says Karčiauskas. “Digital solutions can provide the same impact on much lower costs, but most importantly, they can be fully implemented in as little as one year. We’re already short in time to meet net-zero goals, so novel, innovative approaches are the only solution now.”
Current AI-powered solutions for energy management in buildings show how feasible and impactful measures can help commercial buildings cut on energy waste and reduce CO2 emissions. By leveraging digital monitoring and data analytics, such tools reveal inefficiencies across all types of properties.
ABOUT EXERGIO
Exergio is a company born from extensive experience in building maintenance. Recognizing the inadequacies of conventional approaches, the firm introduces an AI-driven system that analyzes real-time building data, enabling informed decision-making and yielding up to 20% in energy savings. This innovative solution goes beyond static systems, ensuring adaptive building responses to environmental factors, thus optimizing energy consumption without compromising comfort or operational efficiency.