Press Release

Understanding the objectives behind digital-twin-based decarbonization efforts

BOSTON, MA – JULY 18, 2023 – Today, Digital Twin Consortium® (DTC) published The Why and the What of Digital Twin Building Performance and Sustainability: An Owner’s Perspective. This guide is the first in five user guides designed to assist an owner or occupier with new or existing digital twin-based building decarbonization implementations throughout the lifecycle. This first guide addresses such questions as “Why should we do this?” and “What are the objectives for sustainability, efficiency, resiliency, health, risk mitigation, performance, reliability, and accountability?”

“Many owners have set aggressive decarbonization, net-zero, and sustainability plans. These targets typically include goal setting such as achieving net-zero by 2030, erasing carbon footprint by 2050, and decarbonizing across global portfolios by region by specific calendar years,” said Dan Isaacs, GM & CTO of the DTC. “The new user guide can help building owners determine if they are aggressive enough in their strategies and approaches to achieve these targets and how digital twins can play an important role. “

The Why and the What of Digital Twin Building Performance and Sustainability: An Owner’s Perspective looks at the foundational elements necessary to optimize the performance of a built environment, guiding organizations as they decarbonize, to reduce their environmental impact.  The user guide shows how a digital twin can help building owners develop a roadmap and implement the best possible solutions to lower the building’s environmental impact, ensuring sustainability for generations. The guide also discusses digital twins’ positive effects in optimizing long-term building performance.

“As 2030 net-zero objectives become 2040 and 2050 requirements, building owners need to explore new proactive and holistic solutions. This user guide demonstrates how digital twins can help deliver these transformative changes and recognizes that our industry needs to collaboratively reduce the impact of our built environments,” said co-author Todd Lukesh, Client Engagement Manager and Sustainability Lead, Gafcon Digital. “Digital twins help building owners adopt data-driven approaches to help them understand not only how a building is performing but also how it should be performing.”

The DTC Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operations Working Group (AECO) Working Group wrote the guides to offer additional detail following the publication of the whitepaper:  Decarbonizing the Built World: A Call to Action,  which outlines how to reduce carbon emissions using performance-based digital twins. DTC will publish the remaining user guides throughout the summer.

Download The Why and the What of Digital Twin Building Performance and Sustainability: An Owner’s Perspective for more information and a complete list of authors.

About Digital Twin Consortium

Digital Twin Consortium is The Authority of Digital Twin. It coalesces industry, government, and academia to drive consistency in vocabulary, architecture, security, and interoperability of digital twin technology. It advances digital twin technology in many industries, from aerospace to natural resources. For more information about Digital Twin Consortium, please visit our website at https://www.digitaltwinconsortium.org/.

Note to editors: Digital Twin Consortium is a registered trademark of OMG. See a listing of all OMG trademarks. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.