Rethinking climate solutions: the untapped potential of buildings

Almost everyone is thinking about the climate issue incorrectly.

If you asked a random sample of people how we solve the climate issue, a majority would say electric cars.
But most forget about a much larger source of emissions: Buildings.

In every major city, buildings emit more than double the amount of carbon emissions that cars do (~40% vs less than 20%).

The reality is that you can not solve the climate issue WITHOUT addressing how buildings operate. Unfortunately, there is no way to reduce building emissions to zero.

If it’s 20 degrees outside and your tenants want it to be 75 degrees inside, energy will be consumed to make that happen.

But I want to draw your attention to one area we can fix: unnecessary energy waste.

Many buildings waste energy constantly.  Around 25% of buildings right this second have a mechanical failure that management isn’t aware of, wasting  10% of the building’s energy.

80% of centrally heated buildings today are heated to 77 degrees or hotter all day and night because there is no way to know the temperature inside apartments.

The answer to these problems doesn’t cost millions of dollars in renovations, thankfully.

Building owners can solve most of this waste with a set of sensors and some software that costs just a few thousand dollars. The industry refers to this as “smart controls.” It means technology that controls buildings using wireless sensors and proactive, predictive algorithms.

As we tackle the climate crisis, the low-hanging fruit needs to be addressed immediately. In fact, it’s in everyone’s self-interest - building owners save a ton of money, tenants get lower rents and more comfortable apartments, and all of us live in cleaner cities.

This is why we started Runwise. And it’s why 6,000+ buildings already use our smart controls. Whether buildings use our smart controls or someone else’s, the fastest path to solving the climate crisis starts with fixing the largest source of carbon waste.