If there's one topic that's becoming increasingly important to consumers, it's sustainability. People are trying to act sustainably in the way they live, paying attention to recycling, consuming less plastic, using bikes and public transport instead of cars, and buying local goods.

Companies are no different. Through its ecological importance, catering to eco-conscious customers, or long-term energy savings, going green matters to the business. Developing sustainable practices, and offices, should be central to an ongoing business plan as keeping your business telephone service up-to-date.

It's easy to busy yourself, whether you're going over the accounts or working out how to route incoming calls, but sustainability requires regular attention to maintain. Starting with your building. A green building is a building that, because of its construction and features, can maintain or improve the quality of life in its surrounding environment.

Here are 6 examples of emerging sustainable tech for your company's green building.

Energy consumption pre-planning with generative design

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. With generative-design software, architects, designers, and engineers can use an iterative process to find optimal solutions. They can input design goals and constraints such as materials, manufacturing methods, or cost constraints.

The software can then generate different building designs or come up with optimal approaches based on preset energy-performance parameters. Companies can utilize software to easily analyze ESG Performance solutions, identifying areas for improvement - that can influence design.

In-house architects can begin to model energy consumption early in the design process, without waiting until the design is turned over to consultants.

Solar panels

Solar energy is clean and renewable and has gained popularity over the last decade in the green space. In that time they've become less expensive, more efficient, and more durable, making them an appealing investment for green building. That's before you consider the government grants, incentives, and tax breaks made available to businesses that install solar panels.

The great benefit of solar panels is that they can be utilized by most businesses, and any building with a roof. It doesn't need to be a flashy or expensively designed building either - superstores like Ikea, Walmart, and Target have been filling their roofs with solar panels for years.

Artificial lighting

Smart lighting has obvious cost-saving potential, they often use energy-saving bulbs (do check), while allowing you to control what lights are on and when, reducing the potential for waste.

But green buildings shouldn't be all about saving money, effective green buildings also seek to improve the environment of those who work in them. Common advice is to fill the space and its surroundings with greenery, which is good, but smart lighting can help you here too.

The latest emerging tech to hit the green space scene is circadian rhythm and bio-centric lighting. Circadian rhythm lighting mimics the patterns of the outdoors, creating the appearance of natural light. Tunable white lighting can also be integrated with smart building platforms to adjust the color temperature of lighting during the day, replicating the effects of natural light.

Wind Turbines

When you think of wind turbines you probably picture vast fields of totemic structures. This is to say, you might not immediately associate wind turbines with green buildings. But, architects are finding clever ways of incorporating them into building design, while it goes without saying that any company designing a campus-like project should find space for these energy generators.

Shanghai Tower incorporates 270 wind turbines into its design, while The World Trade Center in Bahrain is able to generate 15% of this two-towered skyscraper's energy consumption. Wind turbine supplier Suzlon One generates most of its headquarters energy from turbines across its campus.

Intelligent disinfection

In recent years, intelligent disinfection should be a mainstay in all modern commercial green buildings. During flu season or pandemics, intelligent disinfection is a solution that uses UVC lighting to disinfect spaces and remove pathogens both on surfaces and in the air.

These systems have safety measures in place to ensure that buildings are unoccupied before disinfection begins - sensors and occupancy scans - to ensure that employees have peace of mind while working.

You might even be able to pair this up with smart lighting as UV lighting is commonly used in healthcare to lower transmission rates.

Smart building technology

One way building operations are changing is by using smart building technology. And we don't just mean the technology that powers VoIP numbers, or your automated coffee machine. By using Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) and the Internet of Things (IoT) to interconnect buildings, companies are becoming more energy efficient.

Consider the Sinclair Hotel in Texas, the world's first all-digital hotel. It was able to reduce its energy usage by transitioning to PoE technology run by an IoT-enabled, smart building platform. On a larger scale, the Reforma Tower has an air conditioning system controlled by artificial intelligence through sensors distributed throughout the building.

So if you're looking into how to automate data warehouse migration, think about other areas you automate to help your modernization efforts.

Green buildings are the future

Green buildings, whether you're updating your existing space or building from the ground up, might involve a slightly higher up-front cost - which can put some companies off. But over time, they'll pay off by reducing waste and your energy bills!

You don't want to be the business struggling in 10 years, losing eco-conscious customers to rivals while still shelling out on inflated energy costs. There's a reason big enterprises are investing now, and it's not just because it's the right thing to do. Although, it is, and that should matter.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Alwayne Powell - Director of International Digital Marketing, 8x8

Alwayne Powell is an experienced performance marketing leader with an extensive background in the digital space, working client and agency side to provide paid search, SEO and CRO solutions in the B2B and B2C sectors. They are the current Senior Digital Marketing Manager at leading communication platform provider 8x8. You can find them on LinkedIn.