The Climate Gap

In this In The Weeds episode of The Climate GAP, Lewis sits down with Tyler Smith, Vice President of Global Lifecycle Solutions at Johnson Controls. Tyler is one of the most experienced voices driving the healthy buildings movement, and his 20-year career tells the story of an industry in transformation.From engineering grad to executive, his journey tracks directly with the evolution of building tech. Smart systems. Indoor air quality. Fault detection. Decarbonisation. And now, AI.In this conversation, they unpack:What healthy buildings actually mean in 2025How Johnson Controls built OpenBlue into its digital backboneWhat it takes to lead at scale and still move with speedCareer advice for emerging talent in the spaceWhere the future is headed with AI, automation, and connected assetsWhether you’re building a product, managing assets, or growing a career in this space, this episode brings perspective that matters.🎧 Available on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube📌 Hosted by Lewis Martin, Co-Founder of Element Six📣 Follow for more episodes at the intersection of growth, adoption, product & climate

Buildings aren’t just consuming energy.They’re becoming part of the grid.In this panel edition of The Down Low with Joe, we bring together three leaders who are reshaping how distributed energy resources (DERs) and virtual power plants actually work at scale:Courtney Blodgett — Co-Founder, EdoFocused on building-level load flexibility, automated pre-cooling/pre-heating, and unlocking value with minimal impact on occupants.Brendan Reed — VP Growth, SparkfundDriving utility-scale DER deployment, storage programs, and new ways for utilities to plan around distributed capacity.Thomas Armstrong — Director of Sales, VoltusConnecting buildings to wholesale markets, monetising load flexibility, and turning portfolios into revenue-generating grid assets.We discuss:• How DERs are becoming a faster source of capacity than new power plants• The shift from emergency-only demand response to daily, dynamic flexibility• Why so much load flexibility in commercial buildings is still stranded• The policy barriers preventing DERs from scaling nationwide• How facilities can earn revenue, reduce load, and improve reliability• Whether VPPs can replace peaker plants over the next decade• The convergence of building tech, utilities, and market operators• What “grid-interactive” buildings actually look like in practiceSubscribe for weekly conversations on buildings, data, and the future of the grid.

Smart buildings aren’t broken.. their data is.From inconsistent BAS naming to years of legacy config, most buildings struggle not because they lack sensors, but because the underlying data model is impossible to trust.In this episode of The Down Low with Joe, Nick Gayeski, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Clockworks, breaks down what a decade of FDD deployments has taught him about data quality, ontologies, and why XETO and ontologies matter more than any dashboard or AI feature.We discuss:• Why bespoke naming kills scale, speed, and ROI• How Clockworks thinks about FDD, optimisation, and (eventually) write back• The real-world state of ontology adoption and where XETO fits in• Why integrations and metadata need the same investment as hardware• How partnerships and skilled labour shortages shape building performance• What’s actually slowing down digital transformation in the built worldAbout Nick Gayeski:Nick is the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Clockworks, one of the most established analytics platforms in the industry, helping owners, operators, and service teams detect faults, optimise performance, and get value from building data at scale.Subscribe for weekly conversations at the intersection of data, buildings, and climate.

Smart buildings depend on data, but the operational networks carrying that data are often the weakest and most overlooked part of the entire system.In this episode of Quick Cuts, Ben Muwoki sits down with Andrew Rodgers, Co-Founder of ACE IoT Solutions, to expose the hidden fragility inside OT networks and explain how it impacts analytics, energy optimisation, controls integration and digital building projects.Andrew shares insights from his background in industrial automation, IT and software, and breaks down why so many smart building deployments stall or fail due to network issues that no one is monitoring. From BACnet complexities to organisational silos between IT and FM, this episode uncovers the root causes and offers practical guidance on how to build healthier, more resilient building networks.What we cover:Why OT networks are often under-provisioned and over-burdenedHow network blind spots lead to delays in analytics, optimisation and digital projectsWhat observability means in an OT environmentHow BACnet muddies the separation between network and application layersWho should own network health in an organisationBetter models for designing and maintaining building networksHow network visibility can de-risk major software and analytics investmentsAbout Andrew RodgersAndrew Rodgers is the Co-Founder of ACE IoT Solutions LLC. A company working at the intersection of industrial automation, software and IT. With years of hands-on experience in manufacturing and smart buildings, Andrew helps organisations uncover the operational network risks that often undermine analytics, optimization smart building performance.About Quick Cuts:Quick Cuts is part of The Climate Gap, a series exploring the people and ideas shaping the future of climate technology, smart buildings and decarbonisation.Subscribe and follow The Climate Gap to be the first to listen to all of our content across our interview and podcast formats. Quick Cuts: Short episodes, sharp insights, no filler Pop Up: Chats from the floor The Down Low with Joe: Insider views and industry shifts Into the Weeds: Where complexity meets clarityhttps://www.youtube.com/@elementsixco

Carbon credits are confusing until you anchor them in data.Most portfolios juggle policy, paperwork, and risk while hoping the math adds up. Ashley Sarauer breaks it down. She explains how to turn real building upgrades into verified, bankable carbon credits that buyers trust and owners can model into cash flow.In this episode of The Down Low with Joe, Ashley shares what makes a carbon credit high-quality, why building data beats guesswork, and how a platform approach can transition projects from pilot to portfolio.We discuss:The simple definition of a carbon credit and why title and transfer matterTurning building projects into verified credits using utility data and third party checksAdditionality, permanence, leakage, and double counting explained in plain EnglishWhy buyers want local, tangible credits and how portfolios can keep a portion in houseEx post issuance, pre purchase contracts, and where banks fit inHow credits change underwriting, ROI, and cash flow for deep retrofitsAbout Ashley Sarauer:Ashley is the founder of Ontoly and a veteran of the carbon markets. She studied climate econometrics and worked on climate legislation in Alberta and British Columbia, then led initiatives at Verra in the voluntary market. At Ontoly, she focuses on certifying financial-grade, data-backed credits for real estate decarbonization.Subscribe for weekly conversations at the intersection of data, buildings, and climate.

Energy data shouldn’t be this hard to get, but across 10,000+ utilities, it still is.In this episode of The Down Low with Joe, Udit Garg, SVP of R&D at Arcadia, joins Joe Aamidor and Lewis Martin to unpack how the “Plaid for Energy” is finally making energy data usable.. at scale.Udit explains why every clean energy or smart building solution depends on the same two things: usage and rates. He shares how Arcadia’s acquisitions of Urjanet and Genability are powering a unified data platform for the energy transition, and what that means for corporate decarbonization, bill management, and AI-driven optimization.We discuss:Why utilities remain the biggest bottleneck for clean energy innovationHow Urjanet and Genability together solved “quantity × price” for 10,000 utilitiesData normalization and rate modeling: the hard, unglamorous layer that enables AIHow fragmentation across vendors and internal teams limits ROI on energy programsThe “hierarchy of needs” for energy management — from bill pay to decarbonizationWhy ESG is cooling off, but cost volatility is heating upThe shift from reporting to real action: saving money first, cutting carbon nextAbout Udit Garg:Udit leads technology at Arcadia, where he oversees the platform that connects distributed energy assets, utilities, and corporates through unified data and APIs. He previously led energy product development at C3.ai and began his career at SunEdison, giving him a unique view of how data, software, and hardware must converge to enable the clean energy future.Subscribe for weekly conversations at the intersection of data, buildings, and climate.