IES co-authors new Digital Twin Consortium guide: A Whole Systems Approach to Decarbonization Across the Building Lifecycle

Through our involvement in the Digital Twin Consortium (DTC), IES Founder & CEO, Don McLean, has recently served as the lead co-author on a new user guide, explaining the role of performance-based digital twins in delivering a successful, sustainable, whole systems approach to decarbonizing the built environment.  

A Whole Systems Approach to Decarbonization across the Building Lifecycle is the third in a series of five user guides which have been co-authored by members of the DTC’s Architecture, Engineering, Construction & Operations (AECO) Tiger Team. The guides are designed to assist an owner or occupier with new or existing digital twin-based building decarbonization implementations throughout the building lifecycle, and are a compendium to the white paper Decarbonizing the Built World: A Call to Action, published earlier this year. 

This latest guide stresses that generations of conventional design practices, accompanied by limited levels of sustainable design, have not brought us remotely close to where we need to be in terms of limiting the built environment’s impact on global carbon emissions and climate change. It outlines the need for organizations to employ a whole-systems approach that uses performance-based digital twins to address building systems throughout the entire lifecycle, allowing them to address net-zero carbon targets while balancing energy costs and occupant comfort needs.

“To effectively decarbonize the built environment, we need to employ a holistic approach that embeds sustainability and high energy performance into our buildings at every step - from the early design phase right through to daily operation. This guide serves to highlight the role of performance digital twins as a key enabler to this approach and the associated benefits the technology can offer building owners in terms of whole-life carbon reduction, improved energy efficiency, lower operational costs and in delivering an enhanced experience for building users.” – Don McLean, Founder & CEO, IES

The guide provides insights and recommendations relating to:

• The changing building lifecycle
• Key building performance metrics
• Why operational energy matters
• Why embodied carbon reduction matters
• The performance gap
• Defining the different types of built environment digital twins (Project, Asset & Performance)
• Embedding performance evaluation – the role of a digital twin

Download your free copy of A Whole Systems Approach to Decarbonization across the Building Lifecycle here.