The built environment accounts for 40% of global CO2 emissions, according to data from the International Energy Agency. It’s a substantial number that calls for coordinated action from businesses and the government.
Building operations account for 27% of total global CO2 emissions and provide an opportunity for responsible businesses to move quickly to reduce their carbon footprint while saving on energy costs.
Solving problems has helped Cloudfm grow to become an international leader in facilities management, and it has become clear that helping companies reduce their carbon footprint is the single biggest issue of the next decade, and beyond.
Together with the University of Essex, we stepped up to solve the challenges companies are facing and developed a system that proved to be hugely effective in reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions.
Introducing Mindsett
Mindsett, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cloudfm, was born with the aim of addressing climate change using IoT technology, which can help all sectors reduce their carbon footprint and achieve net zero. The Mindsett team, develop end-to-end IoT technology solutions supported by behavioural change tools to encourage people to take practical measures to have a positive impact on the environment.
Technology has a significant role to play in reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions from buildings. However, data from our studies also showed that behavioural science will accelerate change within an organisation.
The most successful businesses are also the most informed ones, and Mindsett enables companies to take advantage of real-time visibility of energy costs and local supply networks while inspiring company-wide behavioural change that contributes to net-zero targets.
A study with the University of Essex and Cloudfm shows that the employees that are most likely to act positively to reduce energy usage and waste are usually more engaged with their employers and have higher climate risk perceptions.
The pace of change needs to accelerate if targets are to be hit and promises kept. Only by taking a holistic view of the technology, data and behavioural change can the government’s net zero by 2050 target be achieved.
Mindsett turns data into action at site and asset level, helping property managers to target energy and resources where they have the most impact. The solution combines IoT, AI and machine learning to reduce costs and eliminate waste.
It’s essential that a step change occurs within industry to ensure companies have the tools they need to make changes. Smart meters only report half-hourly and cannot correlate consumption to space, occupancy, assets or activity, whereas a complete end-to-end energy solution can support firms with energy management, measurement, procurement and offsetting.
Mindsett automates manual processes and reduces risk to provide an immediate return on investment. In the hospitality sector, the technology is proven to prevent stock loss with fluctuations in temperature, providing an early warning of failure on critical equipment such as freezers.
The benefits go wider with a compliance and risk module that allow users to demonstrate the potential savings from asset monitoring and monitor changes in temperature or failures that could cause issues such as legionella or impair emergency lighting.
Highly engaged teams
Energy-saving motivations at work depend on individual work engagement and perceptions of climate risk. For workers who are highly engaged in their work, daily energy-saving actions can help them to feel good about saving money for the company.
The data shows 84% of retail workers believe the energy-saving app would benefit their workplace, and 72% of employees do not believe their company is currently taking the necessary steps toward achieving net-zero.
Mindsett PRISM can be integrated with existing systems and workflows, making it easy for organisations to adopt without disrupting their operations. Moreover, the system is designed to be user-friendly, with intuitive dashboards and interactive reports that provide actionable intelligence.
The right employee behaviours are key to helping retailers to make big energy savings, so it is important to understand workers’ motivations, opportunities and capabilities for energy-saving at work and how they can be best engaged to maximise their energy-saving actions over time.
If you give companies powerful tools change will come quickly and deliver clear benefits on the road to net zero that include improved operational efficiencies and reduced costs.