Skip to main content
Building Atlas

How the answers are built.

Without giving away all our secret sauce, here's how we put the numbers together, and how we compare with alternatives. Not to impress, but to explain.

01

Modelled in minutes

Traditional energy assessors take days or weeks per building. Building Atlas produces a modelled result in minutes, automatically, at any scale. A full Portfolio Plan with our review attached lands in 48 hours.

02

Address-only input

You do not need to have done any prior energy work. We start from your addresses and enrich the rest from our own data sources. No site survey is required to begin. Our model gets even better as you add context, or edit the model yourself.

03

IC-ready output

The plans are formatted for an investment committee. The methodology is documented, the assumptions are auditable, and the underlying decisions are defensible.

Traditional energy assessors take weeks per building. Building Atlas models a building in minutes.

Most energy assessments involve a site visit, manual data gathering, and a consultant's time, which typically adds up to two to eight weeks per property. Building Atlas starts with public, commercial and proprietary data and the address you give us, runs a physics-based model automatically, and returns results in minutes. For a 50-building portfolio, that is the difference between a three-year programme of assessments and a same-day analysis.

Effort does not scale with the portfolio

A 500-building portfolio takes no longer to model than a five-building one. Building Atlas is built on scalable machine learning; the same models that analyse a single building also apply to an entire city or a national portfolio at no additional overhead. There is no linear relationship between the number of assets and the cost or time of the analysis, which is structurally different from any approach that requires an on-site survey or per-building consultant time.

Start with addresses; grow the model as you go

The model improves as you add context. You can begin with an address list, or you can plug in existing documents, meter feeds, or both. Each tier raises the confidence in the answers.

TierWhat you provideWhat Building Atlas addsConfidence
Tier 1: portfolio screenA list of addressesEPC data, mapping data, building footprints, imagery, grid capacity, history status, climate models, planning data, industry benchmarks, pricing metrics, and Building Atlas proprietary models70–80%
Tier 2: refined modelBasic building info plus any existing documents (maintenance reports, O&M docs, prior surveys)AI-parsed document intelligence refines the energy model per asset85–90%
Tier 3: live modelConsent to connect energy data (smart meters, utility feeds)Continuous energy monitoring, anomaly detection, model self-correction95%+

At Tier 3, Building Atlas maintains a continuously updated analytical model for every asset rather than producing a static report. Anomalies in live energy data surface automatically, the model improves as your data improves, and documents you already have (maintenance reports, O&M manuals, prior assessments) feed the Building Atlas model directly so existing knowledge does not go to waste. We deliberately avoid the phrase “digital twin” because it promises more than most tools deliver; what we actually offer is a living model of your portfolio that becomes more accurate over time without requiring expensive new data collection.

The model itself

The Building Atlas platform combines EPC data, planning data, building geometry, cost databases, climate risk models, and more, alongside your own custom building data to model every asset from first principles. The approach is grounded in published evidence rather than in proprietary black boxes.

Every assumption is documented and every data source is cited, so when you present our output to an investment committee and somebody asks how you got to a particular number, you have an answer for them. We can tell you the route the model took, and you can show it.

Climate physical risk

Transition risk and physical risk. In one plan.

Every Building Atlas analysis screens for climate physical hazards alongside MEES and retrofit cost — assessed at 2030 and 2050 horizons, per asset. So you're not just planning for compliance: you're planning for climate.

Flood

Fluvial, pluvial, and surface-water flooding.

  • Asset damage and business interruption
  • Insurance premium increases or refusal
  • Lender LTV pressure on flood-zone collateral

Heat stress

Overheating risk and urban heat-island exposure.

  • Cooling-load and opex increases
  • Tenant comfort and productivity loss
  • Plant and façade derating in summer peaks

Water stress

Reduced supply reliability and abstraction limits.

  • Cooling-tower and process-water disruption
  • Tariff increases and metering scrutiny
  • Operational continuity risk in stressed regions

Precipitation

Higher rainfall intensity and storm frequency.

  • Drainage capacity failures and water ingress
  • Roof, façade, and external works damage
  • More frequent, costlier maintenance cycles

Coastal erosion

Sea-level rise and coastal flooding exposure.

  • Long-horizon asset value erosion
  • Stranded-asset risk in exposed locations
  • Lending and insurance restrictions

How we compare with the alternatives

Side by side with building-by-building audits and the generic climate-risk tools. We try to be specific about where the differences are real and where they are not.

FeatureBuilding AtlasBuilding-by-building auditsGeneric climate risk tools
Turnaround timeMinutes (modelled) / 48 hours (reviewed plan)2–8 weeks per buildingVaries; often days
Input requiredAddress list onlySite visit and manual data collectionVaries
Retrofit cost and sequencingYes, at measure level, costed and sequencedYes, but slow and expensive at scaleNo
Climate physical risk (flooding, overheating, coastal erosion)Yes, at 2030 and 2050 horizons, per assetVaries, usually manualPartial (physical risk only)
Reporting-compatible outputs (TCFD, GRESB, SECR, EPRA)YesVaries, usually manual extractionPartial (physical risk only)
Programmatic API accessYes: building attributes, energy, stranding risk, plans, climate riskNoPartial (climate data only)
ScaleSingle asset to city-scale at the same overheadLinear cost with building countVaries

Want to see it on your own portfolio?