FMTech Insights: How can Smart Facilities Management Help Companies with ESG?

FMTech Insights is a series where subject matter experts and thought leaders in FMTech share their knowledge and opinions on the topic of their expertise; helping the industry learn, innovate and grow. The series will cover every sector in FM – from workplace management, operations and maintenance, energy management, waste management and everything in between.

Michael Grant is the Co-founder & COO at Metrikus, a platform that provides insights to make spaces smarter, safer and more sustainable. Metrikus can, among many things: reduce carbon footprint with real-time energy monitoring, ensure energy is only used when spaces are occupied, monitor key indoor air quality in real time and generate smart cleaning schedules based on usage. 

FMTech Insights: How can Smart Facilities Management Help Companies with ESG?

ESG stands for environmental, social and governance, and these criteria are pivotal to the way today’s businesses operate.

With governments, investors and individuals all putting sustainability at the top of the agenda, it’s vital for companies to start focusing on ESG sooner rather than later.

In this blog post, I explain how smart facilities management (FM) can help companies to collect and report on key metrics and improve their ESG performance across the board.

What is smart FM?

Smart FM is all about using building data to make spaces healthier, safer and more efficient.

Data is collected from a wide range of sources, aggregated into identifiable trends, and used to drive positive change in the workplace.

With access to key metrics, facilities managers are equipped with the tools they need to optimize environmental, social and governance factors.

How can smart FM help with the ‘E’ in ESG?

Buildings and construction are responsible for 39% of global carbon emissions, with energy used to power buildings accounting for a staggering 28%.

Companies are under pressure to make their spaces more energy efficient, especially with the introduction of regulations like Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) in the UK and Local Law 97 (LL97) in New York City.

With a smart FM system in place, companies can monitor performance, detect inefficiencies and make automatic adjustments via a Building Management System (BMS).

It’s a quick, easy, and cost-effective way for businesses to reduce consumption and meet their net zero targets.

How can smart FM help with the ‘S’ in ESG?

The social aspect of ESG has long been overlooked, mostly because these factors tend to be much harder to define and measure.

However, indoor air quality monitoring has emerged as a quantifiable way to optimize employee health, wellbeing and productivity.

Using IoT sensors, facility managers can monitor key parameters, including temperature, humidity, CO₂, TVOCs and PM2.5.

Smart alerts can be used to notify the right people when these factors exceed optimal levels, and automatic changes can be made through the BMS.

Instead of companies making unsubstantiated claims about improving employee wellbeing, facility management teams can get the data they need to prove they are doing something meaningful to help employees.

How can smart FM help with the ‘G’ in ESG?

To achieve good corporate governance, companies need good data. And what is absolutely key is that this data can be made readily available to all shareholders and stakeholders.

With a smart FM system in place, companies have access to high quality data about a huge range of factors, which can be aggregated and presented in a way that’s easy to understand and make decisions from.

Facility managers can break down data silos and bring data from different systems into one place; a great way to create more streamlined and collaborative processes, ensuring that records are transparent and accessible.

Smart FM and ESG: the future

Going forwards, businesses are going to be subjected to an increasing set of non-financial reporting requirements, including disclosing their ESG impact.

Companies can get ahead of the curve now by using smart FM to collect and measure key ESG metrics and improve their performance.

If you’re interested in learning more, I’d recommend taking a look at our PropTech Guide to ESG.

Disclaimer: the opinion of the author does not necessarily reflect that of the Global Alliance of Facility Management Innovators.