The impact of COVID-19 on building energetics

Buildings are responsible for a significant portion of global energy demand and GHG emissions. Using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus as a case study, we find that, similar to the baseline metabolism of biological organisms, large buildings are on average $25\%$ more energetically efficient per unit size than smaller buildings. This suggests that institutions can be perceived as super populations with buildings as units (organisms) following standard metabolic relationships. Importantly, the relative efficiency of larger buildings progressively increased to $34\%$ until 2020. However, the COVID-19 pandemic acted as a major shock, disrupting this trend and leading to a reversal to the expected $25\%$ baseline level. This suggests that energetic adaptations are contingent on relatively stable conditions.