An interactive demo will walk visitors through the 8-step journey for old and new buildings to reach net zero, including assessment and advisory, road mapping, financing, technology upgrades, digitalisation, and on-site renewable energy. The final step – using the unique, all-in-one digital dashboard in the Openblue Net Zero Advisor to assess carbon footprints, set targets, manage emissions, and track progress – will be especially important to businesses in the coming years. Climate disclosures are becoming mandatory in the EU, the US, and many other countries, not only for building certification and environmental reporting, but also for financial regulation.

Visitors will also experience demos and models of sustainable building technology, including heat pumps that can run on less than half the energy used in conventional heating. Heat pumps extract and amplify thermal energy from renewable sources like sea water, earth, and air, and even use the thermal waste from other heating or cooling processes. Heat pumps are energy multipliers that can run with zero emissions on clean electricity. Heat pumps could replace 80% of gas used to heat buildings, according to the IEA. They will play a significant role not only in helping buildings to reach net zero, but also in achieving energy security imperatives, and are a top priority for the EU and the US.

Although efficient individual building systems can save energy, emissions, and money, Openblue multiplies that savings by using sensors, edge computing, cloud connectivity and AI analytics to integrate systems and optimise entire buildings. Connecting in real-time to two Johnson Controls facilities in Rotterdam and Gorinchem, centre visitors can try out Openblue firsthand, and see its impact in action.

Tomas Brannemo, President of Building Solutions, EMEALA, at Johnson Controls, who will give a keynote at the Rotterdam opening, says: "We are on the cusp of historic building transformation that could help the world reach net zero in time to meet the 1.5 C Paris Agreement target, if we act swiftly. We can talk all day about the impact of building technology, but seeing is believing. At the Openblue Innovation Center, we can peel back the bricks and mortar, and show how quickly digitalization and hyper-efficient, sustainable equipment can transform buildings from energy drains into net energy-positive assets that help businesses and wider communities decarbonise."

The Rotterdam centre is the first to open its doors in Continental Europe and the ninth to join Johnson Controls' growing international network of Openblue Innovation Centers.