Artificial intelligence (AI) and sustainability are becoming increasingly interconnected. AI is one of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal to effectively tackle complex climate challenges, from decarbonizing the built environment and transport to sustaining ecosystems. It offers us the ability to approach these complex challenges in new ways, from analyzing massive datasets to facilitating solutions that humans alone could never achieve.
From making buildings smarter and predicting weather patterns to uncovering new insights that are critical to our ecosystems, AI and sustainability are expanding our toolbox for resilience and efficiency. And, as this technology continues to evolve rapidly, we have a responsibility to use it thoughtfully and efficiently to enable real-world impact and facilitate energy management, while keeping ethics and safety top of mind.
AI and sustainability for energy management
At BrainBox AI, a Trane Technologies’ company, we develop solutions using advanced AI to make the built environment, a major contributor to emissions, more energy efficient and sustainable. The goal is to reduce the energy that the built environment consumes every day, along with the emissions it generates.
Before AI, fully calibrating every building for optimal efficiency would require humans to essentially sit in front of equipment and adjust it constantly — an unrealistic, if not impossible, use of talent and time. Now, with predictive AI, we can optimize the operation of that equipment in real-time.
We start by modeling different possible combinations of what could happen, then use those predictions to ask ‘how should I operate this equipment now to craft a better future?’ By combining telemetry from inside the building with what’s happening outside, such as data about the weather, we can make smarter operating decisions. That enables us to move from reactive to predictive control: saving energy, reducing emissions and prolonging the life of equipment while cutting maintenance costs.
This shift towards AI and sustainability also helps address a significant shortage of labor. Consider Aria, an AI-powered virtual mechanical engineer. It can analyze issues rapidly and recommend the right next step, such as changing a belt on a rooftop HVAC unit. This can create outcomes like reduced truck rolls, less time spent on troubleshooting and more time for our technicians to focus on complex issues, augmenting the capacity of our human experts.
And, the built environment is just one arena where AI and sustainability converge. AI is also being applied to the natural world, from forests and oceans to the tiniest ecosystems that keep the planet in balance. Professor David Rolnick, co-founder of the nonprofit Climate Change AI, points to several areas where AI can help tackle climate challenges. From distilling large amounts of unstructured data into useful information to forecasting based on the past and optimizing complicated systems, sustainable AI can accelerate decarbonization. New use cases include using satellite images to identify deforestation in real time, improving predictions that help integrate solar and wind power or figuring out how to change industrial operations to use the least energy and raw materials.
AI can also support ecosystem health and biodiversity. Land use and healthy ecosystems are major contributors to climate resilience, from pollination in agriculture to the health of forests and fisheries. AI-enabled systems are already being deployed around the world to track biodiversity, generating insights into how native species populations are changing, when invasive species appear and when species are declining.
We’re using advanced AI to optimize how we are operating and maintaining the built environment, with a goal of reducing energy use and emissions.
President and Founder, BrainBox AI and Head of the Trane Technologies AI Lab
The future of AI in sustainability
At the new BrainBox AI Trane Technologies AI Lab in Montreal, the next generation of AI innovation is being developed. With a focus on practical applications, the lab is investing in AI as a powerful decarbonization ally, delivering cutting-edge digital solutions for the built environment that support energy management and sustainability for our customers, communities and the environment.
At the AI Lab, four pillars guide our work: research and development, AI and sustainability, product creation and ethics and guardrails. We start with R&D, teaming up with researchers to test new ideas and scale what works. Our focus on AI and sustainability centers on creating AI technologies that support energy optimization and carbon reduction. With product creation, we bring breakthroughs from the lab to real-world applications that facilitate energy management. Finally, ethics and guardrails keep AI ethics and safety at the forefront, ensuring we design, develop and deploy solutions responsibly.
A critical question in AI development is how can we reduce the energy that training and running AI tools consumes? One approach is to limit our model training to potential real-world conditions. By focusing our models on realistic possibilities, we can reduce the energy consumed during training by up to 50%, helping reduce the footprint of AI while still harnessing it to cut emissions and the energy consumed by the built environment.
Unlocking the potential of AI and sustainability
AI and sustainability is exploding rapidly in terms of capability, and the opportunity ahead of us is enormous. We’ve just begun to scratch the surface of its potential. With the right frameworks, training protocols and guardrails, we can move AI and sustainability from promise to practice in accelerating decarbonization outcomes while creating value.
Already, AI has given us new avenues to reduce emissions and cut energy costs, giving us practical solutions to help achieve goals like our 2030 sustainability commitments and the Gigaton Challenge. We can scale the sustainability potential of this technology by supporting business outcomes that create value while aligning with societal goals. Developed and used thoughtfully, AI will help us reduce energy use and emissions at scale: for our customers, communities and the planet.
AI for the Planet: From Tech Labs to Real Life
Listen to Healthy Spaces as we define how AI can slash building emissions, extend HVAC equipment life and open up new frontiers in biodiversity research.
Learn more about AI and Sustainability on the Healthy Spaces podcast episode
The future is ours to create.
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