Meeting the UK’s ambitious decarbonisation targets demands a smarter, faster, and more cost-effective approach to retrofitting the country’s commercial building stock. Lisa Cairns, business development and improvement manager at IRT Surveys, part of the Mears Group, explores how combining technology and data can deliver energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness in commercial buildings.
In the commercial property sector, where each building is unique and operational disruption carries high costs, informed decision-making is crucial. This is where integrating thermal imaging data with retrofit modelling can transform the way building owners and managers tackle energy efficiency.
Seeing what others can’t
Modern technologies provide critical, property-specific data that enable stakeholders to make evidence-based decisions and implement targeted, effective improvements. Among these, thermal imaging surveys stand out as a fast, accurate, and non-invasive way to assess a building’s energy performance. They offer a clear visualisation of heat loss, insulation defects, and fabric issues that would otherwise remain hidden.
Unlike standard visual inspections, thermal imaging can pinpoint invisible issues such as draughts, water ingress, defective rendering, porous brickwork, and empty cavities. This fabric-first insight allows stakeholders to identify and address inefficiencies at the source, before embarking on expensive and potentially unnecessary measures. It also helps to avoid the pitfall of ‘worst-first’ approach – investing in properties that appear inefficient, but that may not benefit most from efficiency interventions.
Because thermal surveys are quick to deploy and require no scaffolding or intrusive works, they also minimise operational downtime, an important consideration in commercial premises where business continuity is paramount.
Scaling with smart surveying tools
For larger portfolios, advanced surveying platforms take thermal imaging to the next level. One example is a specialist vehicle equipped with thermal imaging, LiDAR, and visual cameras, capable of capturing data at pace and low cost. This technology can be utilised for large-scale social housing projects and commercial property estates, from retail parks to office campuses.
By surveying thousands of buildings in a matter of days, these technologies enable owners and managers of extensive commercial portfolios to build a detailed understanding of the condition of their stock. In Milton Keynes, for example, a vehicle was deployed to assess over 10,000 properties, identifying not just obvious heat-loss issues but also subtle building fabric weaknesses and moisture ingress risks. Similar methodologies could be applied to business parks, enabling commercial property owners to plan decarbonisation schemes with confidence.
Turning data into decisions
While thermal imaging delivers vital insight into a building’s current performance, its real value emerges when combined with advanced retrofit modelling software. These tools take thermal and structural data and analyse it against energy models, costs, and funding criteria to develop actionable retrofit plans.
This integration creates a comprehensive view of both individual buildings and entire portfolios, allowing stakeholders to quantify the cost and carbon savings of different interventions, identify the most effective and cost-efficient upgrade pathways, prioritise projects based on need, feasibility, and impact, and track progress over time, ensuring that installations deliver expected outcomes.
In the commercial property sector, where capital expenditure is scrutinised and return on investment is vital, this level of insight is invaluable. It enables those tasked with decarbonising commercial buildings to target their budgets where they will deliver maximum energy, carbon, and financial savings, aligning operational efficiency with ESG and sustainability goals.
Smarter decisions for a net zero future
The commercial property sector faces rising pressure to decarbonise, not just for regulatory compliance but also to meet investor expectations and improve tenant satisfaction. Without accurate, actionable data, retrofit programmes risk wasting money, time, and opportunity. By integrating thermal imaging with retrofit modelling, building owners and managers can make smarter investment decisions, cut carbon emissions, lower running costs, and deliver more comfortable environments for occupants. As the sector races toward its sustainability targets, data-driven approaches will be essential to ensuring that every pound spent achieves measurable, lasting impact.