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Accountancy giant Ernst & Young (EY) believes Urban Digital Twins are the key to unleashing the potential power of the Metaverse in real world applications for the built environment, including energy transition and decarbonization.

This verdict was delivered in an Ernst & Young  report series on the Metaverse, which quotes Urban Digital Twin pioneer, Cityzenith CEO and Founder Michael Jansen. 

Michael Jansen, Urban Digital Twin pioneer  believes that eliminating emissions in the built environment will require  the integration of different types of tools.

In the future, Jansen says we’re likely to see urban systems of building Digital Twins connected to area or city-wide twins, giving city managers deep insights into the metabolism of the city and new opportunities for broad sustainability gains.

Ernst &Young echoed this in the same Metaverse report: “Perhaps the biggest sustainability opportunity – and imperative – for Digital Twins is in cities, where 70% of global carbon emissions occur.

Global building floor area is expected to double by 2060, the equivalent of adding an entire New York City to the world’s building stock every month, for 40 years.”

A recent whitepaper by EY teams predicted that Digital Twins can cut a building’s carbon emissions by at least 50%, improve its operational and maintenance efficiency by 35%, boost human productivity by 20%, and improve space utilization by 15%.

As one of the world’s Big Four accountancy firms, and head of a global professional services network, EY is well placed to promote Digital Twins and help the Metaverse shape the future.

John de Yonge, EY Director for Global Insights and co-author of the EY Metaverse series, recently joined with Cityzenith CEO Michael Jansen on the webinar ‘Urban Digital Twins set to create the first real world Metaverse for the decarbonization of buildings’ where they expounded and answered questions on the potential of the technologies.

And the EY reports contain the following call to action: “Business leaders must engage now to ensure the Metaverse develops in a way that is sustainable for the planet and people, before exponential growth occurs.

The report urged businesses to develop new customer strategies as they invest, and  to pursue the potential of the Metaverse.