Turning Buildings into Efficiency Engines: Javier Benitez, Colt Technology Services

The built environment is one of the world's largest and most avoidable sources of energy waste. Buildings account for roughly 40% of global energy use and more than a third of global CO2 emissions, not because they have to, but because most are configured around worst-case assumptions that rarely reflect how spaces are actually used. Javier Benitez, Principal Innovation Manager at Colt Technology Services, saw both the scale of the problem and a practical path to addressing it, and built a solution accordingly.

Colt Smart Building, driven by Javier's leadership, combines secure connectivity, edge computing and AI-driven analytics to continuously optimise building performance in real time. Rather than requiring expensive infrastructure replacement, the solution integrates with existing building management systems, streams data securely and monitors critical building metrics every one to five minutes, calculating and applying control adjustments to maintain stable indoor conditions while minimising energy use. The result is a shift from static programming, configured once and rarely revisited, to continuous, autonomous optimisation. Facilities teams spend less time on reactive management; buildings simply work better and use less energy to do it.

The pilot at Colt House in 2025 delivered results that validate the model: a 10% reduction in energy consumption, a 10% reduction in CO2 emissions and a 50% reduction in manual building management effort. Sustainability and productivity improving together is the point. Javier's ESG-by-design approach makes the case that environmental performance does not come at the cost of operational performance; it is a consequence of improving it.

The initiative has earned recognition through an EGDC case study and is now transitioning into broader deployment. What Javier has built is not a one-off pilot but a repeatable, scalable model that can be applied wherever buildings are being used inefficiently, which is to say almost everywhere. His leadership in bringing together Colt's ESG and Innovation teams, identifying the right partners and translating a complex systemic problem into an operational solution makes him a standout nominee for the Planet Award.

To read more about the techUK President's Awards, visit our page here. Winners will be announced at the techUK Annual Dinner on 30 June.

Read more about our President's Award finalists: 

People Award

• Bringing Technology and Purpose Together: Fiona Dawson, Mayden
• Building a Future Where Disability Is No Barrier to Movement: Dr Malik Haddad, Northeastern University London
• Protecting People Online, at Scale: Robin Tombs, Yoti

Society Award

• Protecting Communities Through Intelligence: Clare Elford, Clue Software
• Putting Human Safety at the Centre of Technology: Dr Laura Bishop, British Standards Institution
• Connected Data, Public Value: Vishal Marria, Quantexa

Economy Award

• From Strategy to Production: Steve Chan, Stealth Labs
• Making Technology Work for Small Business: Laura Burley, Xero
• The Genetics Revolution, Made Real: Professor Sir Peter Donnelly, Genomics

Planet Award

• Sustainability by Design: Ray Knight, Atos
• Turning Buildings into Efficiency Engines: Javier Benitez, Colt Technology Services
• Technology in Service of Nature: Isobel Ashbey, Cambridge Consultants