Simply reducing carbon emissions , while vital , seems increasingly simplistic nowadays as wellness and a positive work environment take centre stage among the benefits of a more sustainable city .
Among several climate action and engineering groups , Adams leads the UK ’ s Resilient Cities Group , heads up the Construction Industry Council ’ s Green Construction Panel and is a member of the Trees and Design Action Group . “ In London , we like to think we ’ re a green city ,” he says , “ but there ’ s actually only one tree per person in the whole city . We need to bring together the hardware of engineering , the functionality of making buildings more sustainable through energy conservation , and green infrastructure to help create a better environment .
“ Globally , about 7mn people die per year because of poor air quality and a lot of that comes from cities . In addition , from a financial point of view , over $ 4bn is lost in productivity because of air pollution .”
While ‘ sustainability ’ reflects cutting down energy usage and waste , Adams ’ overarching term of ‘ autonomous ’ also encapsulates health and wellbeing within a building that essentially becomes its own ecosystem . “ Autonomous buildings can create the right air quality in order that people working in cities can get really good air quality , while outside the building we need to clean our act up ,” he says .
In this way , Adams argues , buildings have the potential to be ‘ mediators of climate ’. “ Buildings have a great opportunity to create an environment people can work in .” SPIE UK leverages technologies like IoT and data analytics ,
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