About BIT
We bring climate expertise, local knowledge, and machine intelligence together to help society create a more sustainable built environment.
Our story
Decisions about buildings are also decisions about energy, health, investment and the communities around them. Understanding those connections has always been central to our work.
Our work reaches from the UN’s global buildings assessment to international energy research and policy. Building Insights researchers contribute to UNEP and GlobalABC’s flagship reporting; Ian Hamilton brings experience leading IEA research and translating evidence into policy.
Today, we are bringing that knowledge into city foundation models: learned representations that connect physical conditions with the wider evidence that makes a place meaningful. Based in Toronto, we work with a global perspective and a commitment to local context.
Explore our research foundationsInternational research & collaboration
Progress depends on connecting people, evidence, and institutions across borders.
Our international work brings climate policy, building science, energy, and public wellbeing into the same conversation. Those relationships inform our questions, challenge our methods, and connect local learning with global priorities.
UN Environment Programme / GlobalABC
Ian Hamilton and fellow Building Insights researchers are credited among the lead coordinating authors of the 2025–2026 Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction.
Read the acknowledgementsInternational Energy Agency / EBC
Ian led IEA EBC Annex 70 (2016–2023), advancing the use of real building-energy evidence across countries. This work connects empirical research with the decisions of policymakers and practitioners.
Explore Annex 70WorldGBC / BPIE / GlobalABC
Building Insights joined WorldGBC, BPIE, and GlobalABC to co-host a June 2026 reception at London Climate Action Week, bringing the international buildings community together around evidence and action.
See the programme
Our purpose
To build understanding and create tools that help society design and deliver a more sustainable built environment.
Cities that are lower in carbon, more resilient and better places to live. We want credible evidence to help people make decisions that advance environmental performance, affordability and wellbeing together.
How we work
Useful intelligence depends on the quality of its evidence and the judgement of the people applying it. These principles guide our research and product development.
A more sustainable built environment is the purpose of our work. We consider carbon, resilience, affordability, and wellbeing together, so better evidence can support decisions with lasting value.
A city is lived as well as measured. Its physical environment, social fabric, and policy context matter. Local knowledge helps us understand what the data alone cannot tell us.
Understanding should stand up to scrutiny. We preserve sources and methods, make assumptions and limitations visible, and keep the path from evidence to insight traceable.
Good decisions need different perspectives. Collaboration and informed human judgment guide our work. We share knowledge wherever possible and learn from the people applying it.
Our research practice
Sources, analytical steps, and findings are linked so the path from evidence to insight can be inspected.
Method changes are recorded as distinct editions, with the rationale kept alongside the work.
Successive rounds with stakeholders and subject-matter experts help test assumptions and improve the research.
Building Insights Together