Environmental sustainability in academic buildings can be improved with management interventions such as improving space use efficiency supported by large data from the Internet of Things (IoT). Due to the potentials, the interest in the use of IoT tools for facility management is high among universities. However, empirical studies on this topic are scarce. To address the knowledge gap in this area, this study proposes and examines a process model with steps to measure space use and to improve space use efficiency by IoT tools in academic buildings. The applicability of the model is investigated in 8 lecture halls in a university building by using occupancy and booking data from IoT tools. Four space use indicators are developed to visualize the data and quantify space use, and based on them, the strategies and interventions for space use efficiency are proposed and discussed.

The advancements in sensor and communication technologies drive the rapid developments in the applications of occupancy and indoor environmental monitoring in buildings. Currently, the installation standards for sensors are scarce and the recommendations for sensor positionings are very general. However, inadequate sensor positioning might diminish the reliability of sensor data, which could have serious impacts on the intended applications such as the performance of demand-controlled HVAC systems and their energy use. Thus, there is a need to understand how sensor positioning may affect the sensor data, specifically when using multi-sensor devices in which several sensors are being bundled together. This study is based on the data collected from 18 multi-sensor devices installed in three single-occupant offices (six sensors in each office). Each multi-sensor device included sensors to measure passive infrared (PIR) radiation, temperature, CO₂, humidity, and illuminance. The results show that the positions of PIR and CO₂ sensors significantly affect the reliability of occupancy detection. The typical approach of positioning the sensors on the ceiling, in the middle of offices, may lead to relatively unreliable data. In this case, the PIR sensor in that position has only 60% accuracy of presence detection. Installing the sensors under office desks could increase the accuracy of presence detection to 84%. These two sensor positions are highlighted in sensor fusion analysis as they could reach the highest accuracy compared to other pairs of PIR sensors. Moreover, sensor positioning can affect various indoor environmental parameters, especially temperature and illuminance measurements.

Inclusion of energy efficiency measures (EEMs) in the renovation of the single-family housing stock can unlock the potential for much-needed energy efficiency to tackle climate change. Energy renovation (ER) in single-family houses is often promoted as an aggregate process, and EEMs are treated homogenously without sufficient attention to their differences. This study applies a comparative analysis on common EEMs using chi-square test to investigate the influence of factors already found affecting the implementation of ER. This paper addresses the “personal” and “house-related” factors influencing the adoption of EEMs regardless of motives or barriers leading the adopters’ decisions. This strategy is useful to highlight the contexts leading to an increase in the adoption rate of different EEMs. The analysis is based on a questionnaire survey mailed in spring 2017 to 1550 single-family homeowners in the northern region of Sweden. Approximately 60% of respondents showed interest in adopting at least one EEM if they implement a major renovation. About 46% of respondents stated to have at least one indoor environmental problem (IEP) in their houses, and IEPs are found to have significant relations with homeowners’ interest to adopt several different EEMs. The policy implications related to different EEMs are discussed.

Building in higher education institutions (HEIs) are characterized as energy intensive Experience from practice showing large discrepancies between predicted and actual energy performance. The deviation can sometimes reach 100%. Explanations often originate from occupant’s behaviour along with building operation. IoT-based smart tools can provide extensive information about building usage to improve the building management, often associates with opportunities, for significant energy saving. The analysis in this study investigate space use based on occupancy and booking information in eight different lecture rooms at Umeå University. The results suggest interventions for significant saving potentials, such as modification of access permission and closing down redundant lecture rooms.

Information communication and technology (ICT) services and solutions can improve resource efficiency in a variety of sector, but also result in direct environmental impacts. This study assesses the direct environmental impacts of an ICT service that improves vehicle fuel efficiency using a cradle‐to‐grave life cycle assessment (LCA). This is one of the first studies to examine the entire life cycle of an ICT service from development to use and maintenance, with a focus on software—an aspect that is typically neglected in previous studies. The results suggest that software development and maintenance and the use of in‐vehicle communicators for data transmission have the largest environmental impacts across multiple categories. Deployed across a fleet of 150,000 vehicles over 5 years, we estimate that the ICT service is responsible for 174 tCO ₂ e. However, this is negligible compared with the total emissions of the fleet and the potential savings from the service, given a single diesel vehicle in this fleet emits around 130 tCO ₂ e over the same period. We explore several scenarios to reduce the footprint of the ICT service. The largest potential reduction of around one‐third is achieved by replacing in‐house servers with cloud computing in a data center located in a region with low‐carbon electricity. The study demonstrates how LCA can be used to assess the environmental impacts of ICT services and the importance of considering software in these assessments.