Built to disrupt: innovation in the built environment

Telecommunications giant Vodafone now saves £40m each year by harnessing insights from SmartViz’s building analytics platform across its sites, reducing meeting spaces by over 30% and improving energy efficiency. ISEP partner Cardiff Metropolitan University saved £5m in capital costs and over £800k in annual energy costs after discovering it was using only 20% of its estate while buildings remained fully powered.

“The key ingredients we monitor are human behaviour and the building environment. Privacy is at the core of our work. We use simple battery-powered sensors that you can peel and stick onto doorways, ceilings or desks to anonymously monitor occupancy, activities and movement,” Sharma says. “We also measure temperature, humidity, energy, CO₂ and water, so clients get a complete picture – with intuitive 3D visualisation and interactive reports showing real-time usage against benchmarks to determine how much space you need, where, of what type and what quality.

“Once you have that insight, you can determine the quantity of meeting spaces, the quality of ventilation or equipment, optimum timetabling, or even behavioural or cultural issues in the use of buildings.” This data is captured and displayed on the platform as a digital twin – a virtual representation of a physical space – alongside other operational metrics. “Our work is very visual. When you bring the data together in an intuitive and interactive form, it it aligns stakeholders, influences behaviour and drives evidence-based decisions.”

Last year, SmartViz won the Best Asset Management Initiative at the Digital Construction Awards and the Innovation Accelerator Award at TechFest the previous year for its smarter, greener buildings solution. “For every square metre you don’t build, that’s where true sustainability lies,” Sharma says. “I’m not saying we don’t need more buildings, but finding more appropriate spaces for people by reusing and repurposing existing buildings will be essential in the long term.”

SmartViz’s solutions have also been used internationally to monitor and manage crowd flows, including in India and Makkah, as well as across sports venues, rail stations, airports and city centres in the UK, where local authorities can use the data to better understand movement patterns and help revitalise high streets.

As the TechFest awards panel noted: “Most impressively, their innovative use of data to reframe challenges and inform decision-making demonstrates clear scalability across multiple sectors, making their impact both significant and far-reaching.” As organisations face growing pressure to reduce costs, energy use and carbon emissions, platforms like SmartViz are helping transform buildings from passive infrastructure into responsive environments shaped around the people who use them.

The company uses drones to capture aerial images that are transformed into high-resolution orthomosaic maps and 3D models that allow project teams to track earthworks and understand changing site conditions.

“When project teams have a clear aerial overview of vehicle movements, materials and site logistics, they can identify inefficiencies and improve planning,” Thompson says. “This might mean reducing congestion, improving delivery scheduling or ensuring equipment is being used more efficiently.

“But the real value comes when that aerial data is combined with other sources of visual intelligence, such as fixed cameras and 360° walkthroughs. Together, they create a continuous visual record of the project and a structured layer of data that clients can use to make better decisions.”

Evercam’s solutions are helping developers reduce waste and energy use while building more efficient practices into daily site operations, helping with certifications such as LEED and BREEAM. They can cut site visits by 15% to 50%, with major contractors such as Skanska saving more than 200 site visits per year on large projects, which translates to 15-20 tonnes of CO2 emissions avoided annually.

“Another important sustainability benefit comes from preventing rework,” Thompson explains. “When teams have a clear visual history of the site, it becomes much easier to identify potential issues early on. Catching problems early avoids unnecessary demolition, material waste and delays – in many cases, the most sustainable project is simply the one that runs efficiently and avoids costly mistakes.”

The images and data captured by Evercam technology are presented in one intelligent platform, providing immersive site walkthroughs and 24/7 livestreaming capabilities,  with AI translating visual data into real information for decision-making.

Designers, engineers and clients can now review installations or carry out inspections from anywhere in the world, while visual evidence also prevents legal disputes and protects project margins.

“In many ways, what we are building is a digital record of the construction process,” Thompson says. “That record provides clients with greater transparency, better oversight and better project outcomes. The future of construction won’t just be documented, it will be understood. Reality-driven intelligence is how the industry turns visual data from site into better decisions and better projects.”

Macdonald says: “Previously, carbon assessments could lead to a disconnect between the key decision-making around materials procurement, waste management, site fuel and energy consumption, circularity schemes and the understanding of the environmental impacts. With CarboniCa, we have been able to empower our design managers, engineers, quantity surveyors and sustainability leads to understand and account for whole-life carbon emissions.”

In Morgan Sindall’s construction division alone, CarboniCa has captured savings of more than 57,000tCO2e since its launch – which is equivalent to heating more than 20,000 average UK homes for a year. The company has also made major savings in its housing and infrastructure divisions, including 200 tonnes at Surrey Quays Station through sourcing low-carbon steel.

“CarboniCa is a web-based application with a reporting area displaying headline figures, key graphics and insights,” Macdonald says. “You can also generate comprehensive reports in PDF or Excel formats.”

The app has been designed to be intuitive. Indeed, a reviewer from Arup, which validated the initial tool in 2020, said: “It is among the most sophisticated and complete tools that I have seen, which nicely balances complexity and simplicity.”

It is third-party validated and licensed to Sellafield, while an education version of the tool is incorporated into the built environment course curriculum at Nottingham Trent University.

“The platform is being rebuilt by Once For All to make it scalable so that it can be made available to the whole industry,” says Macdonald. “We aim to democratise carbon reduction in the industry by empowering all to measure and reduce emissions on their projects.”