Technologies, strategies and support for more effective green building specification
Buildings consume around 30% of the world’s energy1. One sometimes overlooked contributor is the security and access management system. Traditional wired solutions which rely on mains electricity can be surprisingly power-hungry, impacting sustainability performance. Specifiers increasingly turn to digital solutions powered by batteries or energy-harvesting technology to help clients including building owners and facilities managers to manage their access more efficiently.
Green building design and specification, including for these security solutions, help the construction industry to address the issue of energy consumption and improve buildings’ environmental performance. The right access solution offers benefits at every stage of the building life-cycle – from commissioning and construction to ongoing maintenance.
In addition, the returns on investing in greener buildings can benefit more than just the environment and business reputation. According to property experts JLL, “buildings with better sustainability credentials are achieving markedly higher capital values and rents”. They estimated improvements of 20.6% and 11.6%, respectively, in one analysis of BREEAM-certified premises for the UK office sector2.
Energy-efficient access and security management
As part of the overall specification process for new-builds and retrofit projects, security solutions can make an important contribution to improving sustainability and energy efficiency metrics.
A digital access system combined with intelligent door closers, for example, ensures reliable, tight door closing while at the same time, maintaining barrier-free access to and through the premises. Inside a building, a closed door helps to maintain temperature differentials — between an occupied office and the corridor, for example, or a server room and a glass atrium. Fully closed interior doors also reduce stack pressure, unwanted inward airflow on the ground floor which is caused by rising warm air inside the building.
Digital access offers a way to monitor and change the status of many doors through a site, of course, in the process benefitting both security and sustainability.
However, not every solution makes an overall positive impact. Their energy-efficiency performance can vary widely. A traditional wired access control system, for example, brings its own challenge: These systems can be energy hungry. A more effective, efficient solution may be offered by choosing wireless, as one recent project in Dubai demonstrated3.
The next digital evolution: energy harvesting technology
Another innovation promises even lower power consumption at the door: energy harvesting. Digital access which is self-powered by energy-harvesting technology consumes no energy during the electronic interaction between user and door. It generates its own.
Energy harvesting is a familiar technology for designers of smart buildings. It is widely used in building sensors. Its application to security now removes energy use at an access point altogether when it is equipped with the right digital lock. With smart key-based electronic access control based on this technology, for example, lock electronics harvest energy from the thrust and/or turning of a key. Kinetic energy from the keyholder powers communication between credential, device and the digital access system.
Such “self-powered” digital locks do not require batteries or cables — or indeed, any external electricity source. These energy-harvesting solutions combine the familiarity and convenience of key operation with the intelligence and flexibility of digital access control. They put facilities managers in command of their premises without the disruption or energy use of traditional wired doors.
At a new residential development in Denmark, an ASSA ABLOY smart key-operated solution powered by energy-harvesting technology now secures more than 300 apartments: “We went for a future-proof solution which was maintenance-free and where we did not have to change batteries,” explains Peter Høpfner, COO and Founder of A Place To, Esbjerg.
Such innovations give organizations additional options when seeking a more energy- and cost-efficient way to secure a site and manage user access. Both battery-powered door devices and smart keys with energy-harvesting locks consume much less energy than equivalent wired solutions powered by mains electricity.
Growing importance for EPDs
The most authoritative way to gauge the impact of a product over its life-cycle is with an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD). An EPD offers a detailed assessment of a product based on careful study of its life-cycle; a complete mapping of its footprint from raw material, through manufacturing, logistics and impact during use, to end-of-life recycling. Thus, product-specific EPDs help architects, specifiers, contractors, developers, green building scheme assessors and housing providers to make accurate forecasts about both embodied carbon and finished building performance. From 2026, a declaration of the results from an EPD must be part of the CE Marking process – and therefore, essential to sell a product or solution to the European market.
EPDs fill a knowledge gap which is crucial to commissioning nearly zero-energy buildings (NZEBs) and to realising the goal of a smarter, more sustainable built environment. For these reasons, many projects already require an EPD to specify a product or solution, well ahead of the new European regulations.
The use of EPDs has grown quickly in the commercial sector, as operators seek granular detail about their building and energy use. Full implementation of the revised European Performance of Buildings Directive, from 2026, will enforce them in the residential sector, too. From 2027, the same regulation requires all new-builds to declare total whole-life carbon, including embodied carbon. The same requirement will apply to renovations from 2030.
Critically for green building specification, EPDs also contribute points towards certifications such as BREEAM and LEED, increasingly prized by both developers and their tenants. Each EPD helps stakeholders to make an informed, transparent choice based on authoritative impact assessments. Their detail helps customers to better understand a product’s impact across its life-cycle.
Within a single document, the EPD equips specifiers with the information they need. With expert help from a trusted partner, they can put this information to work by securing their desired green building certification.
Specification support for greener buildings
From doors and door closers to complete digital access solutions, ASSA ABLOY manufactures and supplies products for almost any building or opening. “This range gives us uniquely broad-based knowledge about standards and certifications,” explains Dikesh Pattni, Specification Manager EMEIA at ASSA ABLOY Opening Solutions EMEIA. “Our locally based specification experts help customers choose solutions which reduce energy use, for example, or door products which improve the thermal efficiency of interior spaces.”
ASSA ABLOY also provides in-depth support to anyone seeking accreditation in six leading green building certifications: BREEAM, LEED, Green Star, WELL, DGNB, HQE. Specifiers can be confident that ASSA ABLOY devices benefit from ongoing supply-chain innovations which specifically target reducing embodied carbon.
In Poland, for example, developer Torus aims for the highest level of LEED certification for all their new properties in the Gdansk area. Where possible, they choose products which have EPDs and Green Circle documentation, favouring access solutions which reduce both carbon footprint and energy costs.
ASSA ABLOY provided expert knowledge, delivered by the local BIM and specification team. They supplied products manufactured using eco-design principles which help reduce ongoing energy use: Robust, reliable, battery-powered devices secure doors and consume much less energy than a comparable wired solution. Door readers have an Intelligent Power Mode (IPM) which saves 41% in energy consumption when compared to equivalent readers without IPM configuration4.
Detailed, product-specific EPDs highlight the concrete benefits delivered by ASSA ABLOY’s investments in sourcing more reusable and recyclable materials, and in embedding low-energy and eco-design principles across its operations
“This level of detail will be essential when the new European directive is implemented from 2026,” adds Dikesh. “We can help project managers and specifiers now, to get ready for what’s ahead – and to stay ahead.”
To learn more or contact an ASSA ABLOY Green Building expert, visit www.assaabloy.com/group/emeia/solutions/topics/bim-specification
1: www.iea.org/reports/buildings
2: www.jll.co.uk/en/newsroom/environmentally-sustainable-real-estate-attracts-higher-prices
