Answering the Future Buildings Standard.

The Future Buildings Standard is the new energy-performance standard for new non-domestic buildings in England.

Its objective is to create highly energy-efficient, low-carbon buildings that will not require major energy-related retrofit to become zero-carbon in operation as the electricity grid decarbonises.

The government’s notional building specification incorporates measures including improved fabric performance, low-carbon heating, improved lighting efficiency, heat recovery and solar PV for many building types.

The challenge is making all of those technologies work efficiently together.

The Future Buildings Standard comes into force in England on the 24th March 2027, introducing higher energy-efficiency requirements for new non-domestic buildings. Transitional arrangements will apply to projects already underway, with separate arrangements for higher-risk buildings.

To meet the new standard, buildings will typically need a combination of high-performance building fabric, low-carbon heating such as heat pumps or heat networks, more efficient lighting, heat recovery and, for most building types, solar PV. The updated guidance also places increased emphasis on the efficiency, commissioning and control of fixed building services.

The challenge is that these technologies cannot deliver their full potential if they operate independently. A unifying building automation platform, such as LOXONE, can bring heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, shading, PV and energy management together, allowing the building to respond intelligently to occupancy, demand and available energy rather than relying on a collection of standalone controls.

The standard is relevant across new non-domestic and mixed-use developments, including:

Hotels
Control energy around actual room occupancy while maintaining the guest experience.

Student Accommodation
Manage hundreds or thousands of rooms intelligently while giving operators visibility across the development.

Offices
Coordinate HVAC, lighting, shading and occupancy to avoid conditioning or illuminating empty space.

Care Homes
Combine comfort, safety, energy management and building services within one adaptable control platform.

Mixed-Use Developments
Bring multiple building functions and energy demands together rather than creating separate control silos.

And beyond

Education, retail, leisure, hospitality, industrial and other non-domestic buildings all face the same fundamental question:

How do you make increasingly complex building services work as one efficient building?

The challenge is no longer simply designing an efficient building. Developers must deliver high levels of energy efficiency, low-carbon heating and, in most cases, solar PV, while balancing build cost, programme, specification complexity and the long-term operation of the building.

As more technologies are added, the risk is creating a collection of standalone systems that each operate independently. Heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, shading and renewable energy may all be efficient in isolation, but the building performs best when they work together.

A unifying controls platform, such as LOXONE, can coordinate these technologies, helping developers simplify the controls strategy while improving how the completed building responds to occupancy, demand and available energy.

The Future Buildings Standard does not prescribe one fixed technology package for every project. Instead, buildings must achieve the required performance against a notional building specification.

That reference specification includes high-performance building fabric, low-carbon heating such as heat pumps, more efficient lighting, enhanced heat recovery and solar PV equivalent to 40% of the building’s foundation area for most building types.

As more low-carbon technologies are introduced, how they are controlled becomes increasingly important. Heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting and solar can all operate efficiently individually, but a unified automation platform, such as LOXONE, allows them to share information and work together – helping the finished building use energy more intelligently in day-to-day operation.

The Future Buildings Standard does not explicitly require a BMS, but as buildings combine low-carbon heating, solar PV and increasingly efficient building services, a unified control strategy becomes increasingly valuable. This is where LOXONE comes in.

The Future Buildings Standard will bring more low-carbon heating, solar PV and energy-efficient building services into new non-domestic buildings.

The challenge is making sure these technologies do not operate as separate, isolated systems. Heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, shading and renewable energy all influence how much energy a building ultimately uses.

A unifying BMS brings these services together, allowing them to share data and respond intelligently to factors such as occupancy, temperature, daylight and available renewable energy.

With a platform such as LOXONE, this means the building can be controlled as one complete system – helping reduce unnecessary energy use, simplify operation and close the gap between modelled performance and how the building actually performs once occupied.

It opens the door to metering, monitoring, trend data, identifying inefficient operation, comparing actual performance against expectations and ongoing optimisation. This is exactly what LOXONE’s Exosphere is made for. 

Yes. Developers do not necessarily need to replace technologies that have already been specified.

A unifying BMS, such as LOXONE, can integrate with existing systems including heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, solar, energy metering and other building services, using established interfaces such as BACnet, Modbus, DALI and EEBUS.

This allows LOXONE to act as the intelligent control layer, bringing otherwise separate systems together so they can share data and respond as one building.

The result is a more coordinated controls strategy, less duplication and a building that can be monitored and optimised as a whole.

Yes. Developers can continue to use their existing M&E contractors, electricians, heating engineers and ventilation specialists to install the technologies required for the Future Buildings Standard, provided the work meets the relevant Building Regulations, design and commissioning requirements.

With LOXONE, those existing contractors can work alongside a LOXONE Partner who can support the panel build, programming and commissioning. The electrical contractor can then install to a clearly defined wiring schedule, allowing the existing project team to remain involved without introducing multiple separate controls specialists.

This creates one unified automation platform connecting HVAC, lighting, shading, energy and other building technologies, rather than relying on several standalone control systems.

For developers, the result is a repeatable controls strategy across multiple projects, simpler installation and handover, and greater consistency in how buildings are operated and optimised over the long term.

Potentially, yes. Higher-performing building fabric, low-carbon heating, solar PV and more sophisticated building services can increase upfront capital costs.

However, a well-designed controls strategy can help offset some of that investment. Using one unified BMS, such as LOXONE, can reduce duplication between separate control systems while providing the infrastructure for energy management, monitoring and additional smart-building functionality.

Depending on the development model, the return can come in different ways: lower ongoing energy and operating costs for retained assets such as hotels, offices and care homes, or through value-added upgrade packages and enhanced property specification where units are being sold.

The opportunity is therefore not simply to add more technology, but to make the required technology work harder and deliver additional value.