The Value of Smart Building Certification
Modern real estate is undergoing rapid transformation, with technology at the centre of the shift where terms such as "SMaRT building," "digital building," and "intelligent building" are frequently used.
Yet, a precise, universally accepted definition remains elusive, often leading to conceptual ambiguity. These designations, regardless of their specific nomenclature, fundamentally aim to leverage technology (IoT devices, advanced data analytics and AI systems) to deliver enhanced operational efficiency, improved tenant experiences and measurable insights. But how can we ensure these advancements deliver on their promises?
The emergence and evolution of Smart building certifications may hold part of the answer, offering a degree of clarity and a standard to validate results.
Nu Xform Smart building consultant, Aleksandra Dasala, explores the value of Smart Building Certifications.
Certification Schemes: More Than a Label
From improving operational efficiency to future-proofing assets, Smart Certifications are more than just a label. For property owners, developers, and managers who want to maximise value and streamline performance, they help quantify, differentiate and promote technological sophistication.
From Green to Smart: The Evolution of Certifications
The concept of certifying buildings isn’t new. Schemes like BREEAM and LEED, which launched in the 1990s, have long set industry benchmarks for sustainability and environmental performance. These frameworks introduced standardised ways to measure "green" credentials, helping developers align with environmental impact goals.
Fast-forward to the digital era, the emergence of real-time data, IoT and smart technologies created a similar demand. The industry needed ways to assess and communicate how well a building leveraged technology to meet operational, user and sustainability goals. This is where smart building certifications stepped in. To validate technological capabilities beyond mere marketing claims.
What makes these certifications valuable is not just their ability to quantify smartness for real estate, but their role in establishing benchmarks and bringing clarity.
The Tangible Benefits of Smart Building Certifications
Smart building certifications go beyond recognition. They provide actionable frameworks and measurable benefits.
Here's how certified smart buildings deliver value to stakeholders:
- Boosting Asset Value & Marketability - Certified buildings often command higher property valuations. In a competitive real estate market, certifications serve as a clear differentiator, making a property stand out. These certifications signal to investors and buyers that a building is equipped to handle future technological and operational demands. Tenants prioritising advanced technology, flexible amenity spaces and sustainability, are often willing to pay premium rents for certified smart buildings that provide these commodities.
- Improved Brand Image & Reputation - Certified buildings can be used as a powerful marketing tool, enhancing the brand image of developers, owners, and the businesses occupying them. Obtaining certifications publicly demonstrates a commitment to sustainability, innovation, and occupant wellbeing.
- Attracting & Retaining Tenants - Modern tenants, particularly in commercial spaces, prioritise technology-ready environments. From better connectivity to user-focused experiences, certifications directly improve tenant satisfaction, making it easier to attract and retain occupants, leading to lower vacancy rates and more stable rental income.
- Optimising Operational Efficiency - Smart buildings certified through recognised frameworks typically demonstrate more efficient resource use, minimising long-term operational expenditures (OPEX). Building owners can reduce energy, water, and maintenance costs, improving bottom-line profitability. While this is a result of the smart-efficient design and implementation of the technology itself rather than the certification, it often assess and encourage these practices.
- Future-Proofing Assets - Technology evolves quickly, and certifications provide the structure to ensure buildings remain adaptable to shifts in tech, regulations, or user requirements. A certified building is less likely to become obsolete down the road.
- Supporting Sustainability Goals - With the climate crisis front and centre, buildings with smart technologies are better equipped to monitor, manage, and reduce their environmental impact. Certifications often integrate sustainability measures and align with existing building codes and environmental regulations, reducing the risk of non-compliance. Non-certified or inefficient buildings may face a "brown discount" in the future, where their value depreciates due to high operating costs or inability to meet sustainability targets.
Ultimately, certified smart buildings consistently command higher property values, attract discerning tenants looking for technologically advanced and sustainable environments, and unlock substantial operational cost savings through optimised resource management.
Leading Smart Building Certifications
Several certification frameworks measure, validate, and highlight a building's smart capabilities. Each caters to specific facets of what makes a building "smart" or “smart-ready”.
Here's a breakdown of some industry-leading certification schemes:
- WiredScore - Focus Area: Connectivity | Asset Types: Office, Residential & Industrial: WiredScore is one of the leading global certifications that assesses a building’s digital infrastructure, such as internet reliability, mobile coverage, and readiness for future network demands. Launched in 2013, by the organisation WiredScore, it ensures robust infrastructure for a seamless digital experience.
- SmartScore - Focus Area: User Experience & Operational Excellence | Asset Types: Office: Launched by WiredScore in 2021, SmartScore is a leading global certification that uses a design-based approach to assess new and existing building's technological capabilities. It evaluates how well a building provides an inspiring occupant experience, supports sustainability, enhances cost efficiency, and ensures future adaptability. Properties are rated Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum through a points-based system, recognizing and promoting technologically advanced smart buildings worldwide.
- BOMA BEST Smart - Focus Area: Operational Optimisation & Sustainability | Asset Types: Office, Residential, Light Industrial, Healthcare & Retail: Based in Canada, BOMA BEST is an internationally recognised certification programme for existing buildings primarily focused on environmental assessment and management. It’s Smart certification, BOMA BEST Smart, launched in 2023, uses a questionnaire-based system to measure how technology optimises operations, drives sustainability and enhances user experiences, awarding five levels of certification - Baseline, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum.
- SPIRE (Smart Performance Indicator for Real Estate) - Focus Area: Holistic Building Lifecycle Management | Asset Types: Commercial Buildings: SPIRE, launched in 2020 in North America, delivers a holistic, performance-based assessment for smart technology in new and existing buildings. It is structured to drive continuous improvement using data-backed insights. The program evaluates operational intelligence across six core pillars: Power & Energy, Health & Well-being, Life & Property Safety, Connectivity, Cybersecurity, and Sustainability. Its evaluation methodology comprises an initial customer self-assessment and a subsequent UL-verified audit, which results in a 1-5 star rating.
- SRI (Smart Readiness Indicator) - Focus Area: Energy Efficiency & Grid Interaction | Asset Types: Residential & Commercial Buildings: Developed by the European Commission, SRI was introduced in 2018 (entered force 2020) under the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. This EU-wide initiative measures a building's ability to leverage smart-ready services to adapt operations to user and grid demands while enhancing energy efficiency. Covering 9 technical domains (e.g., heating, cooling, energy flexibility), the SRI provides a standardised rating of "smart readiness. It uses a points-based rating and audit-based assessment, usually performed by a third-party. Currently optional, it's expected to be mandatory for large non-residential buildings by 2027, requiring integration into EU Member States national frameworks.
- SBC Smart Building Collective - Focus Area: Collaborative & Peer-Reviewed Performance | Asset Types: Commercial: The SBC, established in 2022, stands out as a crowd-source performance-based certification. It operates on a points-based model, where initial self-assessments undergo peer review by independent SBC AP Assessors, inherently encouraging ongoing enhancement. Buildings are awarded Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum status. SBC evaluates buildings across themes such as health, safety, security, and integrative design, guiding the implementation of science-backed, tailored solutions for optimal building performance.
Envisaging The Future of Smart Building Certifications
Technology is advancing at breakneck pace and the role of Smart building certifications continues to evolve in response. AI is increasingly redefining the very essence of intelligent buildings, revolutionising areas like building automation and operations through predictive maintenance, energy optimisation and enhanced security.
Moreover, it's transforming architectural design by enabling generative design, automating compliance checks and optimising layouts for efficiency and sustainability from the earliest stages. Consequently, AI is now also playing a pivotal role in redefining how these technologically advanced buildings are assessed and certified, ensuring standards keep pace with innovation.
- Dynamic Assessments - Future certifications will move beyond static, one-time audits. AI-powered tools will continuously gather and analyse vast streams of real-time performance data from IoT sensors and Building Management Systems. This enables a dynamic, always-on validation of a building's actual performance, ensuring certifications remain accurate and relevant as conditions change, effectively closing the "performance gap" with continuous precision.
- Proactive Compliance - Buildings equipped with AI can monitor performance against evolving standards, flagging issues and auto-correcting to maintain certification levels. This could eliminate the guesswork from compliance altogether.
- Personalisation - With AI insights into occupant behaviour, building use and unique operational profiles, future certification systems may be tailored to specific building types, industries, user needs and unique use-cases, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach.
- Ethical Technology Standards - Certifications will likely expand their scope to cover the critical intersection of technology and trust. They will encompass stringent criteria for AI ethics, data privacy, cybersecurity of AI systems and the resilience of AI-driven building operations. Governments are also starting to legislate minimum standards for technological and environmental performance meaning certifications will soon work in tandem with regulations. Where compliance will become mandatory, certifications should continue to drive innovation beyond basic legal necessity.
Moving Forward
For anyone navigating the certification landscape, it’s important to first define what "Smart" success means for your property. Prioritising the right framework ensures you get more than just a stamp and unlock long-term value for users, resources and bottom lines.
Whether you’re aiming for WiredScore, SmartScore, or others, the goal remains the same: to create spaces that aren’t just innovative but truly connected, efficient and adaptive.
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