The green turn in the building industry is a hot topic and so will be for many decades to come, becoming one of the economic sectors most likely to experience strong growth in the medium to long term. This is likely to be the most obvious observation shared during the days of the exhibition. This is an epoch-making turning point, but one that is already well established, and which has led in a rather sudden way, also due to the pandemic, to redesign the mission of advanced plant engineering in a "smart" key.

If intelligence was applied until recently to fascinating applications, but in the end with a limited impact on the priorities not only of the individual, but of the community, today exactly the opposite is happening and everything seems to be pushing in favour of a massive green conversion of buildings, which has become a planetary priority.

It is no coincidence that during SMART BUILDING EXPO two figures were repeatedly quoted: 40% of energy consumption in Europe is attributable to buildings, which are also responsible for 36% of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. What is the use of an updated plant engineering seems to be the more than obvious answer to the questions that arise from those two simple figures, of which, finally, everyone seems to be aware.

It is precisely in these areas that building automation and its "intelligence" become strategic, and all the companies at the exhibition offered visions and company policies consistent with these priorities; especially when looking at the Italian and European building heritage, more than 80% of which consists of buildings constructed before 1970.  If the design of new buildings, following entry into force on 1 January 2021 of the European legislation on NZEB buildings (near zero energy buildings), can only point in the direction of the so-called "passive house", it is precisely in the redevelopment of the existing (and we are not just talking about residential buildings) the intelligence of the building, or the autonomous ability of the new systems to adapt to changes in the conditions of use using the language M2M (machine to machine) becomes crucial. And this is all the more true if we look at the matter from the perspective of smart cities, where the great topic of the so-called "energy communities" has recently opened up.

The savings allowed by a BACS (building automation control system) concern all the main sources of consumption of a building, i.e. heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting. A UNI standard (EN 15232) provides for the classification of buildings on the basis of their endowment with intelligent management systems, but perhaps the most interesting thing it offers us is also a clear idea of the savings linked to the various classes and types of consumption. Savings that are extremely high, between 40 and 50%, for particular categories of buildings (generally those where it is possible to regulate entrances and exits, such as shops and offices); while in the case of homes for civilian use the percentage is reduced, but touches common more than significant levels.

Advanced sensors, management and control platforms, increasingly sophisticated but also increasingly simple user interfaces, infrastructures for ultra-broadband connectivity and innovative native digital services characterised the product range of a trade fair that, thanks to its simultaneous presence with SICUREZZA and MADE Expo, is now able to offer the many thousands of professionals who visited it an increasingly complete vision of plant engineering evolution and digitalisation of the building heritage and, as a whole, of urban areas.