Last week, we covered why operators struggle to adopt real-time monitoring, even when it can help them end the cycle of deferred maintenance and emergency situations.
If you missed it, it comes down to the fact that when advanced capabilities like fault detection live in a software outside of their daily workflows, they get ignored.
Shifting our focus to the journey towards net zero, we see a similar pattern arise, resulting in a number of common pain points and missed opportunities.
To maximize the value of technology that supports the net zero journey, owners and operators should leverage the “jobs to be done” framework.
This framework states that you should first identify where technology can accomplish a specific task.
True innovation happens when technology does that job better.
In the world of commercial real estate, the first step usually takes the form of software. The second step usually takes the form of real-time monitoring and the data-driven insights that can be derived.
Why ‘jobs to be done’ makes sense for the net zero journey in CRE
Just two reasons:
#1: Too many teams are struggling with reporting
Obviously, reporting utility data through frameworks like Energy Star is critical to any portfolio’s ESG efforts.
The majority of landlords are doing this through utility bill scraping. Basically, a software provider obtains utility login credentials, downloads the utility bill each month and “scrapes” the relevant cost and consumption data.
This is fast, easy and scalable for software to do.
The problem is that most providers do not verify the accuracy of the data that the software spits out (though Enertiv does).
Without accuracy, either the sustainability team spends all their time on data verification, or expensive consultants are brought in to manage the process.
Meanwhile, asset managers and managing directors have to try to answer investor questions without full confidence or transparency into the data.
Looking at the ‘job to be done,’ it’s clear that portfolios need to report their carbon emissions related to utility consumption to investors.
Software built with auditing and verification can do this job, saving time, frustration, and the cost of sustainability consultants.
The process can be further enhanced with smart metering, where the data is captured directly from the source instead of going through the utility billing process. This is especially relevant for triple net lease portfolios that do not have access to utility bills in the first place.
#2: Infusing sustainability into daily workflows is a fast track to net zero
Energy audits
Many portfolios have relied on energy audits to tell them where low hanging fruit opportunities exist and how to prioritize their capital based on the payback period of retrofits.
But at the end of the day, the 100-page energy audit PDF collects dust.
Nobody has read it; just like the last property condition assessment, they pulled out the financial table and put it into a spreadsheet.
In the end, the retrofit projects live outside of the normal capital planning process. Budgeting decisions are made without a concept of carbon, and sustainability is fighting for budget without taking equipment useful life into account.
Capital planning is a job to be done that can be done much more effectively in software.
Of course, basing capital expenditures on estimated useful life and retrofit payback period could be improved.
By incorporating equipment-level energy monitoring, precise carbon calculations can be made for each piece of equipment that is purchased.
Every decision can be made with lifetime carbon in mind.
Tenant submetering
Billing tenants each month for their submetered consumption is another job to be done that can benefit from being infused with sustainability in mind.
In many portfolios, the process is purely an accounting exercise, where meter reads are taken on pen and paper, transcribed into spreadsheets, and then manually turned into bills by downloading the utility bills.
Software can digitize and automate this process.
From pulling in (and verifying) utility bills, to taking meter readings on an app, to generate tenant invoices, software can do this faster and more accurately than people.
When submeters are upgraded to digital meters that can be read remotely, not does it fully automate the process, it allows landlords to provide a value-add service to tenants that are yearning for greater transparency into their utility consumption and carbon emissions.
Conclusion: the value of real-time monitoring goes beyond HVAC optimization
When real-time monitoring comes up in net zero discussions, it’s usually in the context of the energy savings it can generate.
To be sure, real-time monitoring can generate a compelling ROI by optimizing HVAC schedules, set points and startup times.
However, viewing the technology through only this lens misses the bigger picture, contributes to more siloed technology, and limits scalability across a portfolio.
Instead, if real-time monitoring is thought of in the context of ‘jobs to be done,’ the value streams are broadened, there is more buy-in across departments, and it’s easier to scale.
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