A couple months of ago, I posted my thoughts about the untapped revenue potential that sits in waiting for the pro AV integrator in the “smart” building technology industry.
While my perspective and opinion about this has in no way changed, I did just read an article in Commercial Integrator that really touched on something that I did not in my post. I do believe it is at the heart of why we as an industry have not had any tangible success in penetrating this market.
In addition to what I called attention to in my last post, it comes down to a lack of industry recognized standardization of AV & IT’s impact on Green Building Technology.
As pointed out in the CI article, the USGBC has consistently rejected adding AV materials to its LEED certification checklist. And up until just recently, since the USGBC has essentially been the only widely accepted governing body in this space, green building owners, contractors and architectural design firms focused on sustainability and LEED certification, have simply passed over it for obvious reasons.
Well, from every indication I can see, this all about to change. STEP & GBI have partnered up to offer the Green Globes building certification program. These standards are not necessarily new, but the US government placing the Green Globe certification program on the same level as LEED, is.
This is a game changer! Competition is a wonderful thing.
And while currently AV & IT are not directly a part of this certification checklist at depth, the standardization process is well under way leading into 2015. ANSI has been working with GBI for the last 4 years in developing what represents the current version and tiers of the Green Globes certification program. And as we all know ANSI is very familiar with our world, so more to come on this…
This an ideal time for us as an industry to become versed in understanding what the next generation of “Smart” Building technology looks like. There remains a significant gap between green building technology and our Integrated Communication technology segment.
It is in the bridging of this gap connected to the impact of the Green Globes certification program that clearly represents where our opportunity lies!
This article was written by Jamie Finnegan, Business Development Manager at Almo Professional AV.
