FMJ Facilities Management magazine providing industry-specific intelligence to FM and property professionals
BUILDING SERVICES AND MAINTENANCE PROVIDER’S VIEW
STEVE MCGREGOR,
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR THE DMA GROUP
Technological innovation is crucial for helping FMs meet sustainability targets, facilitating a robust, evidence-based approach to building management, while spotting trends that can lead to improvements in overall best practice. Sustainability can no longer rely on pledges alone — customers, stakeholders and regulators demand hard data and demonstrable outcomes.
Smart building monitoring, for example, offers critical insights into energy consumption, occupancy patterns, and environmental conditions. Through sensors, IoT platforms, and AI-driven analytics, FMs can move from reactive maintenance and guesswork to predictive, optimised operations. This not only reduces energy waste and carbon emissions but extends asset life, a win for both sustainability and cost efficiency.
When live data informs decision-making, guiding investments in building upgrades, renewable energy solutions, and smarter maintenance strategies, the chances of a ‘right first time’ approach is far higher. Any sustainability drive should begin with the basics, the quick and cost-effective wins that will immediately save money. By tracking energy consumption across a building and its assets, we can easily see what these quick wins are – swapping for LED lights, for example – the savings made can then help fund more major improvements, such as renewables.
True ‘sustainability’ should extend to every part of a building’s operations, and this includes staff management. FM providers are often tasked with orchestrating disparate teams, including subcontractors. We use technology that automates workflows and processes, tracks service staff, employed or otherwise, records and retains their qualifications and experience, ensuring the right person, with the right tools goes to a job first time every time. This also automates the administrative burden of timesheets and compliance while sending automatic calls to action when and where needed. The use of such live end-to-end data transparency means quicker better decisions. This approach not only ensures better, more efficient maintenance practices, it saves man hours and reduces unnecessary travel. This hard-won digital transformation has doubled our efficiency and eliminated over 14,000 hours per year.
Of course, technology is only part of the solution. It must be paired with upskilling the FM workforce to interpret data, apply insights, and implement change. Digital literacy, sustainability awareness, and cross-disciplinary collaboration are just as crucial as the technology itself.
For digital transformation to be successful, implementation must be phased and well considered before adoption. Too often we see businesses investing in the latest software without due diligence, they haven’t properly defined the problems that need solving and considered fully what they need to solve them.
We always recommend thinking big, starting small and failing fast, to test what works (and what doesn’t), and then rolling out a new solution once confident in its capabilities within the specific setting. Legacy systems that aren’t compatible with AI are also an issue and will need to be upgraded for the sector to move forward. There are no short cuts, unfortunately.
Technological innovation is essential to FM’s sustainability journey, providing the tools to understand where we are, map where we need to go, and measure how effectively we’re getting there.
