Digital Twins for sustainability in building operations - How a large commercial real estate firm can use digital twins to generate sustainable values in the O&M phase

Abstract: This thesis aims to examine how digital twins can generate sustainable values for large commercial real estate firms in the O&M phase in the built environment. Digital twins are not an uncommon technology in object-centric sectors, such as manufacturing or automotive. However, current research has only scratched the surface of what the technology can do in terms of sustainability, especially in people-centric and service-oriented environments with a lot of subjective data and complex causalities. Findings from literature are analyzed together with context-specific insights from a qualitative case study to generate tailormade knowledge, taking the unique characteristics of this area of usage into consideration. In this way, benefits, challenges, and how to-aspects are extracted through thematic analysis. Lastly, a framework for using digital twins in the O&M phase of built environments with people is developed. Hence, this research contributes to providing deeper knowledge about how to generate sustainable values using novel technology and innovation, and about applications and implementation challenges of the sparsely researched idea of using digital twins in the O&M phase of built environments. Thus, the contributions are twofold – Saturating the sustainable innovation literature, as well as generating new insights about using digital twins in people and service-oriented systems. We argue that the results are relevant and applicable to a broad range of service sectors where people are part of the systems.