Planes? Nope. Agriculture? Try again. It’s actually our buildings that are among the biggest culprits of energy consumption and emissions. The numbers are truly staggering. The latest figures from the International Energy Agency reveal that the operations of buildings alone account for 30 percent of global final energy consumption. The direct CO2 emissions from buildings hit three gigatonnes in 2022. To put that in perspective, the aviation industry contributed almost 800 megatonnes in the same year—73 percent less than building emissions.
Think your thermostat is smart? ecobee is getting smarter
Over 90 percent of the energy used in residential buildings is devoted to space heating and hot water. Making existing buildings more energy-efficient is the obvious solution. Indeed, to achieve a climate-neutral Europe by 2050, the EU has pledged to shift from “nearly-zero energy buildings” to “zero-emission buildings” for new construction starting in 2028.
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On a consumer level, demand for greener and more efficient homes is also gaining traction. Devices such as smart thermostats—Wi-Fi-enabled devices that learn your household routines and optimise heating and cooling accordingly—have been hitting the shelves with breakneck speed in recent years. Smart thermostats are big business; the market is projected to reach US$5.15bn in 2025.
One such manufacturer is ecobee. Aside from launching the world’s first smart thermostat in 2009, Ecobee has also made a significant impact on reducing energy and e-waste. They ensure their products last and “design for easy disassembly and repair and resell thousands of thermostats per year.” According to their own data, customers across North America have saved over 41.2 terawatt-hours (TWh) of energy with ecobee’s smart thermostats—the equivalent of taking all the homes in New York City off the grid for an entire year.
The company is now changing tack. Leveraging the popularity and proliferation of smart thermostats across North America, they’re now developing an entirely new way to tackle our buildings’ planetary burden: data donation.
What is a smart thermostat?
Smart thermostat systems work by adjusting temperatures automatically based on when you’re at home or not to ensure that energy isn’t wasted heating an empty house.
Many models, like those from ecobee, also use occupancy sensors to fine-tune climate control in the rooms that matter most.
Instead of blindly following a schedule, they analyse real-time data to keep energy use lean and efficient.
Savings in energy and money vary depending on the settings used, and average savings are complicated to elicit. However, the average American home is said to save approximately 8 percent on their annual heating and cooling bills with a smart thermostat, and UK customers between 8.4 and 16.5 percent of their heating’s energy use. Some estimates cite savings as high as 31 percent.
Powering science with user data
ecobee’s data donation project allows users to help researchers analyse energy consumption patterns on an unprecedented scale. Currently, those looking to understand and optimise home energy usage only have access to data from a handful of homes. ecobee hopes they can boost this number to over 200,000 with the program.
The data, which is stripped of any personally identifiable information, includes insights such as home size, temperature settings, occupancy schedules and Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) runtimes. Researchers at universities, government agencies and NGOs then use this information to develop better energy-saving strategies. The hope is that, once the findings are shared with them, these researchers will then publicly publish their findings to ensure the data continues to provide use. Ecobee receives no financial compensation for this data. ecobee declined to comment for this article.
“You can’t manage what you can’t measure”
While smart devices and their data optimise energy use, they’re far from a silver bullet in the fight against climate change. Issues surrounding structural inefficiencies of poorly insulated buildings, outdated heating systems or urban planning prioritising carbon-intensive materials remain unaddressed. These issues represent the lion’s share of our building’s emissions. Even if every human being on the planet donated their data, there’s simply only so “efficient” our homes can be. Smart tech can certainly help trim energy waste. But, deep emissions cuts will require larger-scale policy shifts and infrastructure investments, including a sizeable reduction in our reliance on non-renewable energy sources.
However, by contributing real-world insights at scale, devices like ecobee’s could well be shifting the conversation from isolated efficiency gains to systemic change. This change couldn’t come sooner. With an ever-increasing number of people living in urban environments and the risk of missing our climate targets becoming likelier than ever, we need all the data we can get to make our homes as sustainable as possible. With every adjusted degree and every shared data point, we’re not just warming or cooling our homes more intelligently—we’re rewriting the blueprint for how buildings consume resources.
