The Main Barriers Limiting the Development of Smart Buildings

Smart buildings play a key role in the complex ecosystem of cities and are often subject to barriers that limit their development. Although identifying these barriers is fundamental to creating an enabling environment for this segment’s expansion, few works aim to identify these challenges. This work has two main objectives: (1) to research the main barriers limiting the development of new smart building projects and (2) to prioritize these barriers from the perspective of professionals with experience in the field. We adopted an exploratory approach common in research that focuses on identifying and prioritizing variables related to a phenomenon, which is based on two main actions: obtaining information through a careful literature review and consulting professionals who work in the concerned field. The results showed that professionals assessed the 23 barriers identified through bibliographic research as important, with the most important being related to lack of qualified professionals, shortage of government policies, higher initial and construction costs, macroeconomic barriers and access to financing, high cost of intelligent systems and technologies, regulatory barriers, lack of knowledge about the current and potential benefits of smart buildings, and more complex design and construction.