Insights and highlights from Bueno’s London event on decarbonising buildings with smart building analytics.
The smart building analytics London event, Beyond the Meter: Decarbonising Buildings at Scale, brought together leaders from across commercial real estate to explore how data and technology are accelerating the industry’s decarbonisation journey.
Held on 9 October 2025 at The Lookout in London, the event united building owners, occupiers, operators, and technology partners to discuss one critical theme — how to bridge the gap between net-zero ambition and operational reality through smart building analytics.
Across three sessions — a fireside chat, an owners’ panel, and a partners’ panel — participants explored how analytics is being used not only to track energy but to optimise performance, extend asset life, and reduce emissions across portfolios.
“This isn’t about collecting more data — it’s about using data to deliver measurable results.”
Hugh Amoyal
CEO Bueno
Fireside Chat – Delivering Net Zero through Smart Building Analytics
The event opened with a fireside conversation between Hugh Amoyal, CEO of Bueno Analytics, and Chris Wright, Director and Head of Sustainability and Decarbonisation at Avison Young.
Their discussion set the tone for the afternoon: achieving genuine net-zero outcomes requires data-driven decision-making, integration across building systems, and collaboration between technology and operations.
Chris Wright noted that most portfolios have already implemented basic metering and energy audits but are still missing the operational insights that analytics provides. Smart building analytics, he said, allows teams to go “beyond metering” to detect inefficiencies, validate improvements, and build the business case for ongoing optimisation.
“We’ve spent years talking about energy reporting. The next step is energy action — using analytics to find and fix inefficiencies daily.”
Chris Wright
Avison Young
Amoyal highlighted the importance of scaling analytics across portfolios. He described how near real-time insight helps owners and operators move from reactive maintenance to predictive operations — aligning capital planning with sustainability outcomes.
Panel One – Owners’ Perspective on Building Performance and Value
The second session brought together Raphael Amajuoyi (AXA IM), Lee Stentiford (Nuveen), and Andrew Cowie (40 Leadenhall), moderated by Robbie Epsom, independent ESG consultant.
This owners’ perspective panel explored how asset managers and developers evaluate the return on investment for smart building analytics — balancing financial, operational, and sustainability outcomes.
The group discussed how investor expectations, tenant demand, and regulatory pressure are converging to make analytics a core element of asset value. Buildings that demonstrate energy efficiency and performance transparency now consistently outperform peers in both rental yield and ESG ratings.
“Analytics transforms data from a reporting tool into a management tool. It’s what allows us to connect sustainability targets with financial performance.”
Raphael Amajuoyi
AXA IM
Stentiford and Cowie highlighted the role of analytics in bridging operational gaps. For new developments such as 40 Leadenhall, early integration of analytics supports performance validation from commissioning through to daily operation — reducing drift, improving comfort, and protecting design intent.
Panel Two – Partners’ Perspective on Implementation and Scale
The final discussion, moderated by Holli Renton (Ashdown Phillips & Partners), shifted the focus from strategy to implementation.
Panelists included Oliver Light (Accenture), Michael Trousdell (WSP), Andries van der Walt (Verco), and James Atkins (FPC Digital), each offering an expert view from the consultancy and integration side of the industry.
Together, they examined how to deploy smart building analytics at scale, manage integration complexity, and ensure long-term performance alignment across multiple assets and stakeholders.
“We’re finally moving from data for reporting to data for decision-making — that’s when you start to see real impact.”
James Atkins
FPC Digital
Van der Walt noted that 80% of challenges are people-related, not technical, emphasising the importance of change management, training, and buy-in across site teams. Light added that AI is reshaping the industry’s skills landscape, urging the sector to prioritise workforce transition alongside technology deployment.
Trousdell stressed the role of scalability, cybersecurity, and standardisation in successful portfolio rollouts, while Renton reminded the audience that progress comes from collaboration, not competition.
“When partners collaborate rather than compete, progress accelerates. Real innovation comes from shared goals, not isolated efforts.”
Holli Renton
Ashdown Phillips
Shared Outcomes and Industry Alignment
Across all sessions, a consistent message emerged: smart building analytics has moved from optional to essential in achieving decarbonisation and operational excellence.
Speakers agreed that the next frontier isn’t just collecting better data — it’s ensuring that insights drive action at every level of the organisation. Whether through fault detection, predictive maintenance, or continuous optimisation, analytics now underpins how high-performing buildings are managed.
The event also highlighted several unifying outcomes:
Collaboration across the value chain: Owners, consultants, and operators must work as one ecosystem, sharing data and aligning incentives.
Investment logic: Analytics should be recognised as infrastructure — delivering measurable ROI through energy, maintenance, and productivity gains.
Standardisation and scalability: Consistent frameworks across portfolios enable meaningful benchmarking and faster deployment.
Upskilling and workforce readiness: A data-literate facilities workforce is central to sustaining long-term improvements.
“The industry has never been more aligned — owners, engineers, and consultants all recognise that analytics is the foundation of decarbonisation.”
Michael Trousdell
WSP
Audience Questions – The Conversations That Mattered Most
Audience engagement across all three sessions reflected the same urgency and curiosity shaping today’s commercial property landscape. Attendees were eager to move beyond theory, asking pointed questions about who pays for analytics, how to prove ROI, and how to ensure that insights translate into real operational change.
In the fireside chat, questions focused on cost recovery and implementation speed. Chris Wright (Avison Young) highlighted the need to treat analytics as a value generator, not a reporting cost:
“If we keep treating data as a compliance task, we’ll never unlock its operational value. Analytics needs to be seen as infrastructure — not overhead.”
During Panel One, audience questions turned to investment models and accountability. Several participants asked how owners and occupiers can share the cost of analytics without undermining trust or performance outcomes. Raphael Amajuoyi (AXA IM) noted that the solution lies in transparent benefit tracking:
“When analytics can demonstrate clear savings — whether through energy reduction, comfort, or avoided maintenance — that’s when you see joint investment work.”
In Panel Two, the discussion shifted toward integration, scalability, and the human factor. A recurring audience theme was the gap between technology potential and workforce readiness. Andries van der Walt (Verco) underscored that success depends more on culture than code:
“It’s 20% technical and 80% about people — success depends on buy-in from the ground up.”
Oliver Light (Accenture) expanded on this, noting that analytics deployment isn’t just a technical transition but a generational one:
“AI is changing the skills this industry needs. If we don’t invest in reskilling today’s engineers, we’ll create tomorrow’s skills gap.”
Another strong thread from the audience explored AI ethics and data ownership — how to manage increasing automation without losing human oversight. Michael Trousdell (WSP) called for pragmatic standardisation and smarter scale:
“We should stop spending a load of money on stupid insulation and look to scale. Get 300 buildings using the same monitoring system — that’s where the real carbon reduction happens.”
Closing the event, moderator Holli Renton summarised the day’s recurring message — that progress relies on collaboration more than competition:
“Analytics is no longer a competition between platforms; it’s a collaboration between people. When we align objectives, the technology delivers.”
From the stage and the floor, one message was clear: the industry is ready to move from discussion to delivery, and analytics is the mechanism that will make that transition possible.
The Path Forward – Building a Unified Industry Approach
The smart building analytics London event closed with a clear consensus: the technology, capability, and momentum already exist — but industry collaboration will determine how quickly large-scale decarbonisation becomes reality.
As portfolios grow in complexity, analytics provides the common language that connects data, performance, and decision-making. The challenge now lies in moving from individual success stories to portfolio-wide transformation.
Bueno Analytics will continue to work with partners, owners, and advisors to turn these discussions into measurable outcomes. The London event marked an important milestone in building that shared framework — proving that data, when applied with intent, is one of the most powerful tools for achieving net-zero buildings at scale.
A huge thanks to our speakers:
Robbie Epsom
Independent ESG Consultant
Andrew Cowie
Head of Engineering 40 Leadenhall
Raphael Amajuoyi
ESG Lead (Real Estate) AXA IM
Lee Stentiford
Director of Development Management Nuveen
Holli Renton
Director at Ashdown Phillips & Partners
Oliver Light
Principal Director of Real Estate, Accenture
Michael Trousdell
Director, Sustainability & Technology, WSP
James Atkins
Managing Director, FPC Digital
Chris Wright
Head of Sustainability UK, Avison Young
Hugh Amoyal
CEO, Bueno
Andries van der Walt
Head of Real Estate, Verco
And thanks to our event partners:
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