ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 322

Introduction
1.1 Background
An intelligent building can be defined as a dynamic and responsive infrastructure that integrates
disparate building systems such as lighting, HVAC, security, facilities management, etc. to effectively manage resources, provide high performance benefits and optimise processes, comfort,
energy costs and environmental benefits. (Clements-Croome, 1997; Harrison et al., 1998; Sharples
et al., 1999; Wacks, 2002; Clarke, 2008) Over the past 35 years, intelligent buildings have evolved,
owing to technological maturity, web-enabled integration platforms, solid industry standards
and increased market demand to become mainstream, practical and economically viable. (Ehrlich, 2007) The current scenario and speculation of advances in the fields of AI, robotics and architecture, confirm that intelligence in buildings is a sign of technological progress and it has been
foreseen that by 2020, most of the buildings around the world will be increasingly intelligent.
(Nikolaou et al., 2004; Kurzweil, 2005)
Buildings are responsible for at least 40% of energy consumption in most countries. It has been
highlighted that all buildings in the UK accounted for 45% of all energy use and 43% of all the carbon emissions. (Garner, 1996; Harris, 2004; Pitts, 2004; Kinver, 2011) As energy prices climb and the
focus on environmental performance intensifies, buildings will have to make extra efforts to steer
towards the sustainable way. With the advent of building intelligence, in the times when sustainable development is a rising concern, it is quite necessary to determine the relationship that exists
between these two multi-dimensional entities so as to help the agenda of comfort, safety, energy
efficiency, and monetary savings. (Gadakari et al., 2013)
1.2 Underlying approach
This paper proposes that both sustainability and intelligence are multi-dimensional entities that
are defined by and measure different things. It aims to find the true relationship between them
and the nature of correlation i.e. if building intelligence would aid sustainability or not.
Currently there are a number of Green Building Rating Systems that are helping in designing and
certifying an ever-increasing number of buildings worldwide. The sustainability value of these
buildings is judged based on various parameters such as energy performance, water efficiency,
materials, air quality, etc. to ultimately obtain a Sustainability Score. It is evident that most of the
current stock of buildings employed intelligent building technologies (IBTs) to varying degrees. In
order to find a relationship between the intelligence and sustainability in buildings it was strategized that the IBTs used in these ‘certified Green’ buildings need to be analysed so as to assess
their impact on the Sustainability Scores achieved. It was hypothesized that if IBTs enhanced the
sustainability of a building then as the number of IBTs used in a building increased their LEED/
BREEAM score would also increase. 40 LEED and BREEAM certified commercial buildings were
chosen from all over the UK and Europe as study subjects.
BREEAM and LEED were chosen for this research as they are the two most widely used rating systems around the world. Currently nearly 9 billion square feet of building space participates in a
variety of LEED of rating systems and around 1.6 million square feet is certified per day around the
world. BREEAM has certified over 200,000 buildings and over a million are registered for assessment since it was launched. (BRE, 2015; Roderick et al., 2012; USGBC, 2015)

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ZEMCH 2015 | International Conference | Bari - Lecce, Italy