Cityzenith

Phoenix joins Clean Cities – Clean Future digital twin initiative

28 October 2021

A groundbreaking project in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, will show how a digital twin platform enables buildings of any size, type, or age to significantly cut operating costs and carbon emissions.

An Ernst and Young report forecasts that digital twins can help commercial property and infrastructure owners cut emissions by 50-100 percent, reduce operating costs by 35 percent, and improve productivity by 20 percent.

Furthermore, tech intelligence firm ABI Research suggests city planners and building asset owners are set to save a staggering US$280 billion through digital twin technology over the coming years.

These savings from digital twin technology are expected to form a crucial part of the US government’s ‘build back better’ programme and its new US$3.5 trillion infrastructure bill.

The addition of Phoenix, which has a population of 1.74 million and is America’s fifth-largest city, is a major coup for Cityzenith’s global Clean Cities – Clean Future initiative. The programme enables major cities to adopt Cityzenith’s SmartWorldOS digital twin software platform to help reach net-zero targets.

Community engagement

In partnership with the Arizona State University Smart City Cloud Innovation Center, Cityzenith and Phoenix have created a prototype digital twin of the downtown area.

“The Cityzenith digital twin will allow for real-time modelling of proposed downtown development to provide immediate answers to concerns or questions raised during the community outreach process,” said President & CEO of Downtown Phoenix Inc., Devney Preuss. “The new platform will help to make the urban planning and development process more inclusive and efficient.”

Downtown Phoenix follows the New York Brooklyn Navy Yard and downtown Las Vegas projects committing to Clean Cities – Clean Future, and comes as other major American cities, including Washington DC and Los Angeles, are pledging to eliminate all emissions by 2050.

Michael Jansen, Cityzenith
Michael Jansen, Cityzenith

Cityzenith Founder and CEO Michael Jansen said: “Achieving net zero emissions in buildings requires simultaneous deployment of multiple strategies, including real-time energy monitoring, onsite renewable power generation, and the purchase of carbon offsets.

“Today, many property owners turn to green building retrofit consulting services which are labour-intensive, costly, and not risk-free. The downtown Phoenix digital twin project will seek to automate these currently manual services into a single easy-to-use solution that is more comprehensive, accurate, and much less expensive.”

Building emissions

Jansen noted that cities produce more than 75 percent of the world’s carbon emissions and buildings account for 50-70 percent of that, making them the planet’s single biggest polluter. He said that of the 5.9 million US commercial office buildings – totalling over 100 billion sq ft, fewer than 100,000 are green buildings (1.7 percent), and only 500 (0.008 percent) are net zero buildings.

“Digital twin technology’s unparalleled ability to aggregate, visualise, and analyse 3D space + 4D (time) data and correlate efficiencies among multiple systems is ideal to solve this problem, providing an optimised net zero building engineering solution that makes financial sense,” Jansen commented.

“This is what the market has needed for a long time—a green building calculator that any property can easily use.”

Cityzenith’s goal is to show how an investment of $0.10 per sq ft will unlock $3-$5 per sq ft in savings with a shortened payback schedule of three to five years on retrofit investments.

“We have a long way to go and a lot to do to get to carbon neutrality in our cities, and historically there just haven’t been any platform tools to help us get there. That’s why we launched the Clean Cities – Clean Future initiative,” Jansen said.

“We have the answers our cities in America need to fulfil their climate promises and put plans into action. We hope the growth of Clean Cities – Clean Future can set an example across the country.”

Cityzenith is holding the fourth webinar in its series of six with Cities Today on 2 November at 1pm (CT).

Phoenix – A digital twin model will be hosted by Cityzenith CEO Michael Jansen and features project partners.

You can register for the webinar here.

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