Do you need an IT-label alongside an energy label?

Buildings have become increasingly measurable in recent years. Where real estate used to be assessed mainly on location, floor area and maintenance condition, owners, users and investors now look at a growing number of performance indicators. Energy consumption, sustainability, installations, safety and comfort have all become quantifiable to a greater or lesser extent.

The energy label is the best known example of this. It provides an instant overview of a building's energy performance and has become a standard part of the assessment for many offices. That label has helped a wide audience think about energy in terms that everyone understands.

Yet there is a component missing that is becoming increasingly important: the digital foundation of the building. A modern office can be energy efficient and sustainable, yet remain of limited use to the organizations that want to work there without a solid digital infrastructure. The question is therefore gradually shifting from "how energy efficient is this building?" to also "how digitally prepared is this building?".

What an energy label tells you about a building

An energy label makes the physical energy performance of a building transparent. It looks at the factors that determine how much energy a property consumes and how efficiently it does so.

• the expected energy consumption of the building;
• the insulation of facade, roof and floors;
• the installations present;
• the heating and cooling systems;
• the overall energy efficiency.

That information is valuable. It helps with sustainability improvements, with estimating operating costs and with the value development of real estate. An energy label is therefore a solid tool in investment decisions and in the conversation between owner and user.

But the label has a clear limit. It says nothing about the digital capabilities of a building. A property with an excellent energy performance can at the same time be poorly prepared for the connectivity and technology that modern organizations need. We explore that difference between physical and digital quality further in our article on the difference between the IT-label and the energy label.

Digital infrastructure as a new basic provision

The way organizations use buildings has changed drastically in recent years. Hybrid working requires reliable connections at any time of day. Cloud applications are moving business processes to external data centers. Artificial intelligence places higher demands on bandwidth and stability.

On top of that come the building-related systems themselves. Smart building technology, digital access control, IoT-based sensors and data-driven building management all rely on an underlying network. And as the number of connected systems grows, so does the importance of cybersecurity. We describe how these components relate to one another in the knowledge base article on smart building technology.

Connectivity and IT infrastructure are therefore becoming increasingly comparable to other building-related provisions. Just as no one seriously considers a building without electricity, water or climate control, a reliable digital foundation is becoming a self-evident expectation. A building without that foundation increasingly falls short of what users consider normal.

A building can save its own energy while at the same time getting in the way of the organizations inside it digitally. Both performances deserve to be visible.

What an IT-label makes transparent

Where the energy label makes energy performance transparent, the IT-label does the same for the digital readiness of a building. It shows what digital foundation is present, so that owners and users can weigh this without having to carry out technical research themselves.

An IT-label provides insight into the following components, among others:

• the internet possibilities and available connections;
• the network cabling present;
• the WiFi provisions in the building;
• the technical rooms and patch rooms;
• the degree of redundancy in the infrastructure;
• the possibilities for smart building applications;
• the digital security provisions.

It is important to note that an IT-label does not assess the organization working in the building. It makes the digital foundation of the property itself transparent. The IT-label does not pass judgment on good or bad, but places a building in a classification that indicates how far its digital preparation extends. You can read how that weighing comes about in the explanation of how the point system of an IT-label works.

From SHELL to PREMIUM

The classification runs from buildings without digital infrastructure, designated as IT5 SHELL, to buildings that are fully prepared for advanced and AI-driven applications, designated as IT1+ PREMIUM. In between are the levels that indicate whether a building has a basic infrastructure, is usable in a plug-and-play manner, or is move-in ready for demanding users.

Energy label and IT-label: complements, not competitors

It is tempting to pit the two labels against each other, but that is not the right perspective. They answer different questions and complement each other.

	Energy label	IT-label
Focus	Energy performance	Digital readiness
Subject	Physical building quality	Digital building quality
Answers the question	How efficiently does the building use energy?	How prepared is the building for digital applications?
Important for	Sustainability and energy use	Connectivity, technology and future value

A future-proof building has not only a low energy demand but also a strong digital foundation. Anyone who steers on energy alone misses half the story that determines whether a property remains usable in the longer term. We further develop the idea that both foundations carry equal weight in the article on energy and IT as two foundations of modern real estate.

Why digital quality is becoming part of property value

The expectations of tenants and users are shifting. An organization moving into a space today assumes that reliable internet connections are available immediately. Employees expect a seamless digital work environment, whether they work at the office or from home. Smart building applications also require a solid underlying infrastructure.

For that same reason, investors increasingly look at the future-proofing of buildings. Digital quality is an indicator for them of how long a property will remain attractive to the market. In our article on the IT-label and return, we go deeper into what this means for yield, acquisition and disposition.

The parallel with the energy label is clear. Just as an unfavorable energy label can affect the attractiveness of a building, limited digital infrastructure can restrict future users in their possibilities. For those looking for space, the question about the available connection is often one of the first, as we describe in the article on the internet connection as the first question of modern tenants.

From sustainable real estate to smart real estate

The real estate market is undergoing a shift. For years, attention was mainly focused on energy-efficient real estate. That attention remains, but it is now joined by a second question: is the building also digitally future-proof?

Smart buildings are only possible when the underlying infrastructure is in place. A smart building does not, after all, begin with software or sensors, but with a reliable digital foundation. Without that foundation, smart applications remain loose promises without a base. We explain why that foundation should be the starting point in the knowledge base article on future-proof construction.

Sustainable and digitally future-proof real estate is therefore the picture that emerges. The two tracks reinforce each other: a building that uses energy efficiently and is at the same time ready for tomorrow's technology stands stronger in the market than a building that only performs well on one of the two fronts.

Does your building need an IT-label alongside an energy label?

An energy label and an IT-label answer different questions. The energy label shows how sustainable and energy efficient a building is. The IT-label makes clear how digitally prepared a building is. For future-proof real estate, both aspects matter: energy and digital infrastructure together form the foundation for the buildings of tomorrow.

If you want to know what the digital readiness of your property currently entails, the first step is to explore how the IT-label works and which classification suits your building. This gives you the same transparency about the digital foundation of your property that the energy label already offers you about energy performance.