Electric vehicles are heading towards real estate at speed and scale. With up to 300 million EVs on the roads by 2030, new business models are beginning to emerge. But for all the opportunities, there are also plenty of obstacles. Yardi’s Bernie Devine and ESR’s Dr. Michael De Jong-Douglas recently sat down to explore the possibilities. Dr. De Jong-Douglas, ESR’s Group Head of Customer Solutions & Partnerships, was the special guest on Yardi’s Proptech Insights, hosted by Bernie Devine, Senior Regional Director at Yardi. The International Energy Agency predicts that the number of electric vehicles on the roads – cars, vans, trucks, and buses – could reach 300 million by 2030. Last year electric car sales took off, surpassing the 6.6 million mark despite supply chain bottlenecks and the ongoing challenges of Covid-19. This took the total number of electric cars on the road to 16.5 million. The passenger vehicle market may be driving towards electrification at a rapid rate, but logistics vehicles – especially trucks travelling longer distances – are an entirely different proposition, the pair noted. But many of the world’s largest logistics companies have made commitments to electrify their fleets. Dr. De Jong-Douglas pointed to several 2030 commitments – DHL’s 60% global EV target, DB Schenker’s “emissions free” European footprint, Amazon’s plan for 10,000 EV vans in Europe and Unilever’s switch to EVs to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 40-50% among them. Meanwhile, nascent, regional logistics players across Asia Pacific have begun EV initiatives in various markets. These include Linfox, Coupang, Sagawa, Maersk, and JD.com. As Dr. De Jong-Douglas suggested, these illustrate “very real examples of companies in our own backyard doing pilot projects and making very strong public commitments to switch to EVs.” While the market is on the move, there are clear challenges ahead. For example, the issue of range anxiety is easier to overcome in denser urban environments than in geographically dispersed economies like Australia, Devine noted. The uptake of EVs also varies across the region depending on the combination of “carrots” – incentives and subsidies – and “sticks” of regulation. For real estate companies, a “chicken-and-egg” scenario has emerged. How do they decide when, and to what extent, to provide EV charging facilities in their sites, for both passenger cars and delivery trucks? The challenge for asset owners is to roll out charging technology for customers today without getting “caught in one model” that compromises the opportunities tomorrow, Dr. De Jong-Douglas noted. Certainly, the “interconnectivity” of energy efficient buildings, renewable energy and EV charging were emerging as a “combined package” for any customer focused on ESG and “circular” solutions. But are fast, reliable charging stations the best solution? Or, Devine asked, could battery swaps become a thing? Are there other technologies ahead on the horizon? Conveniently located charging stations that allow vehicles to ‘top up’ their charge many times throughout the day make sense for smaller delivery vehicles, the pair agreed. Shell has already begun reimagining its fuelling stations as “energy hubs” with the provision of coffee, snacks and communal areas to provide pleasant places for customers to relax while their EVs recharge. ESR is in conversations with its customers “every single day.”, Dr. De Jong-Douglas added, “and our customers are saying to us: We are doing pilot projects, so get ready.” Check out the latest episode of Yardi’s Proptech Insights series or register for our next...

Three things are holding back the world’s commercial real estate sector, says Kylie Davis, president of Proptech Association Australia. “Our commitment to Excel spreadsheets and filing cabinets and whiteboards,” are roadblocks to a real estate revolution. And this “very inefficient and expensive” commitment is holding real estate companies back from squeezing more value from assets and creating better experiences for customers. Davis, a serial entrepreneur and futurist who advises several proptech start-ups, recently sat down with Bernie Devine, Yardi senior regional director of APAC, for a chat. Property technology – or proptech for short – has been growing at a “phenomenal” pace over the last two years, Kylie said. Proptech Association Australia has identified 18 separate transactions worth at least AUD$274 million since late 2019 alone, as some of the nation’s largest landlords and most influential media companies accelerate their investment in technology. Proptech may attract the headlines, but scratch below the surface and “really it’s about getting the industry to change,” Devine added. Real estate is certainly resistant to change. Nearly half of Australian real estate companies still use spreadsheets for valuation reporting, budgeting and projections and 52 percent depend on spreadsheets to undertake benchmarking and performance analysis, according to the latest Yardi/Property Council of Australia Proptech Survey. Why is an industry committed to efficiency and asset optimisation holding on, so stubbornly, to spreadsheets? Change can be “painful and scary,” Davis observed. The long development and sales cycle in the commercial real estate sector can be a “real killer of innovation.” Fear of failure plays a part, Devine added. “It’s also a question of what to do first.” But Covid acted as a catalyst for widespread technology adoption, and “convinced the unconvinced”, Davis said. She is excited about the potential for the commercial sector to convert “analog assets” –everything from lights and air-conditioning – into “data streams that can be interrogated.” Davis pointed to several inspiring examples. AI Assets recently tagged more than two million assets in 1,500 Australian buildings in less than a year – 80 per cent faster than with the traditional pen and clipboard method and with a fraction of the people. Exergenics, uses big data, AI and algorithms to optimise HVAC systems, extracting “two or three per cent” more efficiency from every unit. This translates into hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings over the life of a building, not to mention carbon emissions. The outcome will be smarter buildings, but more importantly, better experiences for the user. Proptech “promotes the idea of a building as a device,” Devine added. Where do real estate companies start when they are dipping their toes into the technology waters? Devine’s “rules of the road” start with some simple questions: Whose problem are you trying to solve? And who perceives the most value in solving that problem? “And then bring together the data and process to solve the problem,” Bernie concluded. Click here to watch the latest instalment in Yardi’s Proptech...

Should we be snapping up land in the metaverse? Splashing out on virtual real estate? Should we jump onto the next big thing for fear of missing out? Or should the real estate sector be more skeptical about technology? These were some of the questions Yardi’s Bernie Devine and JLL’s Jordan Kostelac explored in the latest instalment of the Yardi Proptech Insights series. As JLL’s director for proptech in the Asia Pacific, Kostelac is focused on turning one of the world’s biggest real estate agencies into a technology company that specialises in real estate. Kostelac’s job is to “separate the wheat from the chaff” to uncover the technological solutions that will improve efficiencies, enhance human experiences and create new value. Technology’s main goal is disintermediation or, as Kostelac says, “to get rid of the middleman.” But JLL has a 250-year history as an intermediary that strikes deals and supports operations, Devine noted. “To survive, agencies need to move to a substantially a tech-driven platform where the human touch that agencies bring is amplified, and delivered even better, even smoother and even faster.” But does that mean JLL will be building software to sell? Creating the software to support better internal processes? Or something else entirely? “All of the above – but none of them yet,” was Kostelac’s response. JLL is investing in core technologies to improve workflows and deliver efficiencies across the business. There is no replacing a good broker, the pair agreed, but technology does allow brokers to automate tedious parts of their job so they can focus on relationship building. JLL is “fighting over the trophy fish” of premium and A-grade leases. But these only represent a fraction of the market and in the hybrid world of work, “A-grade real estate isn’t the only real estate that will matter,” Kostelac said. Flexibility will drive demand for lower grade stock so businesses can distribute their networks and create authentic experiences. “It’s more than CBD concentration in the future.” A bigger market requires better access to data, Devine observed. The conversation turned to the metaverse and the challenge of separating overstatements and obfuscation from real estate reality. “The idea that buying virtual real estate now is like buying real estate in Manhattan 250 years ago is just crazy,” Kostelac laughed. But “FOMO – the fear of missing out – eats due diligence for breakfast.” The ’fake it until you make it’ mindset is embedded in Silicon Valley culture and “there has to be some science fiction otherwise there’s stagnation,” Kostelac added. But now the metaverse is emerging as the ‘next big thing,’ Devine noted. “Blockchain and smart contracts and virtual real estate… I’m still a bricks and mortar guy, because you can’t copy and paste Times Square ..The price of real estate is driven by scarcity. But virtual real estate has unlimited supply.” Kostelac pointed to Hong Kong and Sydney – where he and Devine were located – as two illustrations of why physical real estate has value. These cities boast two of the deepest harbours in the world. We can’t “program” 39 billion years of evolution into a metaverse. But in the metaverse, “assumed scarcity can simply be overwritten by a single line of code.” “We are looking at threats where they aren’t there. And opportunities where they aren’t as well,” Kostelac noted. But the stakes aren’t just economic – we have the looming existential threat of climate change as a reality check. What is the solution for a sector susceptible to chasing hype, Devine asked? “It’s very simple. Show me the evidence,” Kostelac concluded. Watch the latest instalment of Yardi’s Proptech Insights and register for our next session, with Proptech Association Australia’s founder Kylie Davis,...

What’s the best way for a real estate company to flex its innovation muscle? Robust evaluation. That’s the key takeaway straight from two property technology specialists, Cromwell Property Group’s Sean Rowe-Hagans and Yardi’s Bernie Devine. Devine, regional director for Yardi in APAC, caught up with Rowe-Hagans in the latest installment of Yardi Proptech Insights. The series dives deep to get beneath the surface of property technology. Unzipping efficiencies As Head of Enterprise Architecture and Innovation, Rowe-Hagans has been driving Cromwell’s culture of problem solving through technology for more than a decade. Established in 1998, Cromwell has grown from a small Australian property syndicate to a real estate investment trust with 3.4 million square metres across three continents. Cromwell has a razor-sharp focus on operational efficiencies, and technology and data play a big part in unzipping those efficiencies, Rowe-Hagans noted. But Cromwell adopts technology sensibly and strategically – and the secret is to start with business strategy. “You have to identify a gap before you go looking to fill it with technology,” Rowe-Hagans observed. Cromwell doesn’t currently have too many gaps to fill. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t do things better,” Rowe-Hagans added. Technology should be evaluated “almost as if you are a venture capital firm”. Do your due diligence or risk a big “technology debt,” Rowe-Hagans advised. “You don’t want to be driving down that road, especially if your strategy is efficiency.” Cromwell’s short-term strategic focus may be on efficiency, but its long-term lens is pointed on “business resilience” – and that means thinking “not just about how our buildings run but about how our business runs.” Unpacking the business case Building a business case before a big technology implementation is often the easiest step, Devine observed. That is, until two years later, when it’s time to assess the benefits of a technology investment and “no one knows what it has delivered.” Rowe-Hagans, who spent many years in IT project management, agreed. “The bit after the implementation is the tough bit.” That’s when resources and focus fall away. “Without careful management or monitoring, within two years of that implementation the system will be costing you more than you even began to imagine when you were running that evaluation.” Cromwell assesses “not just reactive risk but also future risk,” Rowe-Hagans said. This means more than going with a gut feeling and a lot of time investigating global megatrends and materiality matrices. “We are really interested in that long-term vision – not just plugging a hole for the now.” Technology implementations are also evaluated against the user experience and how it will be maintained throughout its lifecycle. “Smart” organisations appoint “process champions,” Devine said. Others often “neglect” technology after its implementation. “But it’s like a marriage. If you don’t invest in the marriage, it falls apart.” The real estate industry’s challenge is to be both reactive and agile – and that means each player must think big picture. “It’s about the ecosystems we are trying to build in this technology world – and that’s not just about Cromwell. It’s about all of us as an industry.” Building the ecosystem Rowe-Hagans gave a tip of the hat to Yardi for its role helping to build the ecosystems that each sector of the property industry needs to thrive. Yardi’s work capturing the lifecycle of a building – from leads to when a tenant leaves – was case in point, Rowe-Hagans noted. The real estate industry is starting to come together to collaborate and connect around data governance and sharing. “But it’s not there yet,” he added. The challenge ahead, nevertheless, looms large. By 2025, according to Yardi’s most recent whitepaper, the world will be generating an astronomical 175 zettabytes of data. This is “too many zeroes,” said Devine. If each bit was a coin, one zettabyte of coins in a stack would reach to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, 600 times....

Every single person in Lendlease’s 11,000-strong team has their sights set on net zero emissions by 2025. It’s a huge undertaking – one which will be impossible without the help of technology and data. This puts Richard Kuppusamy and Helen Lam – two of Lendlease’s digital leaders – in the driver’s seat as they help steer their company towards Mission Zero. Bernie Devine, regional manager for Yardi in Asia Pacific, recently caught up with the pair as part of the latest installment of Yardi’s Proptech Insights series. A big pivot Lendlease must meet its first net zero target in four years – an aggressive but “very deliberate” decision, Kuppusamy told Yardi’s audience. “Everyone who is in Lendlease today has to deal with this problem,” he emphasized. And it’s a big problem for everyone in the real estate sector, given the global built environment is responsible for almost 40% of the world’s emissions. But Lendlease – which designs, constructs and manages buildings on four continents – is in a rare position of influence across the entire development lifecycle. It is for this reason that Lendlease’s technology strategy is watched by the entire industry with interest. Kuppusamy joined Lendlease in March as Head of Lendlease Digital Asia and is based in Singapore. He oversees leadership, management and performance of Lendlease’s digital business unit across the region – and that includes Lendlease’s new property lifecycle platform, Podium. Podium links everything from building plans and construction programs to the results and realities of operation. It is the foundation of autonomous buildings, he noted. Podium supports data-driven decision-making “at every touch point” of the property lifecycle and is the key to economic and environmental sustainability. With Podium, Lendlease is “pivoting” towards a future as a “software engineering firm,” Devine observed. And that means data is now one of Lendlease’s greatest assets. Data rich, insight poor Globally, the real estate sector remains “data rich and insight poor,” Richard observed. “There are a lot of solutions, but they are all very siloed.” How do we dismantle these silos and unlock the “proprietary data jails,” as Kuppusamy called them, for a greater common good? “It’s not just about sharing – but about sharing in a meaningful way.” The industry must move away from technology that solves “spot solutions” or “siloed problems,” Helen added. “In real estate there are no silo problems – they are all interrelated.” While many systems capture data, only “actionable insights” deliver value, Kuppusamy said. Devine agreed. “I always say to our clients: ‘We deliver actionable insights, but it’s up to you to take action.’” As Head of Innovation and Development Practices in Asia, Helen Lam is responsible for identifying new ideas to be researched, tested and integrated into the way Lendlease works. One of the projects currently underway is to eliminate diesel – which is “really dirty, noisy and hazardous” – from construction sites. “We don’t have the inhouse tech to solve it all ourselves,” so Lendlease is partnering with an Asian start-up with an advanced compact and connected lithium-ion battery system. The technology eliminates 80% of onsite emissions, “is much quieter and emits zero fumes,” she explained. Data can also aid “macro decisions” that deliver a better experience for people, alongside those that are best for the planet, Lam added. Lendlease has installed Internet of Things technology in restroom facilities in retail malls across Asia, for instance, to better understand peak loads. From this data, Lendlease has enhanced the customer experience, while also “making better procurement decision around our contract negotiations and reducing operational expenditure.” Self-driving buildings Devine pointed to the use of digital twins as another tool that can help the real estate sector move towards net zero. In May, Ernst and Young reported that digital twins could save up to 35 percent on project and building costs and reduce city-level carbon emissions by between 50 and 100 percent. Lendlease has...