The climate tech start-up making waves in a crowded sector

In an ever-expanding sea of climate tech innovations, cutting through the noise can be a challenge. While the real estate sector remains under intense pressure from investors, occupiers, tenants and, albeit fluctuating, government policies to decarbonise and reduce energy costs, knowing where to look for help and data analytics is far from clear-cut. But while the sector may still not be sure of what it is looking for, it knows what it wants; to reduce costs and emissions, see a return on investment, have access to real-time data analysis and the option to roll out successful technology fast. So when an article was published at the end of last year about Croydon office Stephenson House reporting a 28% reduction in energy use over nine months, resulting in a £171,000 saving in operational energy costs, more than a few eyes turned to REsustain, the relatively new kid on the climate tech block behind this success story. Founded in 2021, the start-up promises rapid ROI of 20-65% per year using its building optimisation tool and digital twin technology and is focused on carbon reporting to “extend the stranding date and value of real estate assets as stricter regulation demands higher energy ratings”. EG spoke to co-founder and director Annie Marston about what differentiates REsustain in a crowded sector, why data as collected is “useless” and how creating a data room for a building is the key to de-risking a future sale. Before we get into the details of the business and how it operates, tell me a bit about how REsustain came to be. We are a team of three technical founders. The software engineer, the building management system expert and the building physics founder. We were all frustrated in our former, individual roles that we couldn’t make a significant difference in the built environment. Often, there was a reluctance to take on this part of the building industry. It is very specific, around the controls of a building. Historically, buildings have been left alone once they are built and no one pays much attention to them or any of the controls. So the three of us realised that not only can we control these buildings from afar, we can make them perform considerably better at scale. We realised we could fix, or at least attempt to tackle, this climate problem with existing buildings. The big difference was that by pooling our knowledge we saw an opportunity to do this at scale. So rather than doing something bespoke for one building then finishing that project and starting another one, we could roll out a system at scale and make a significant change. You mention that no one pays much attention to building controls. This is changing rapidly. Good news for your business but also for others in the same space. How do you differentiate what REsustain is doing in a busy market? We don’t just identify problems within buildings and portfolios, we will fix those problems from afar. One of our main differentiators is that two of the founders have come from the real estate sector. I have seen a lot of tech companies coming into an industry they don’t really understand. We have the knowledge to know what the issues are in the context of the wider real estate industry. So we know how to solve fundamental problems while some of our competitors are a bit more surface-level. It is about so much more than making a building smart or knocking off little bits of carbon here or there. The sector needs and wants measurable results. We have been very clear that we can provide scientific data that shows what we’ve done, how we’ve done it, and how it affects your impact on the world. The other thing we want to do is democratise the tools we use. We have these powerful calculation methodologies that we use and usually those get thrown away. What we want to do is say to clients, you have this tool now for your building which makes it much smarter. Please use it and we will always help you to utilise that tool so you don’t have to start from scratch each time. And as for the data you are feeding back, can we talk about the importance of providing analysed data and patterns rather than just giving it back raw? The data is useless as collected. We collect it, clean it and translate it. That is the basic level we need to do to be able to use that data. Everything that comes back to the building is analysis from that data. The first thing we do is analyse the data against existing practices and rules that we know, as engineers, should be working in the building. Because we create this calibrated digital twin, which is a whole other analysis model, we can use that to do calculations based on the scientific methodology that’s come before it. And then from there we can set alerting on the building. We can also utilise that data in order to calculate how many carbon savings need to be made. The machine learning element is mostly for sorting and translating the data. The analysis itself sits on a very firm engineering background that we’ve programmed into an engine. It sits on engineering principles, which means the data can be analysed very fast and if there are any problems then a human comes in, sorts it out and programmes that back into the engine. So it is a mixture between machine learning and human learning. It is a tough market out there at the moment, both for real estate and tech. What are your plans for the next 12 months? How ambitious are you feeling? This year will be about refining this initial product that we have created, which is the optimisation service. Then we’ve got these other products on top of that, which is the democratisation of the data and the analysis. We want everyone to be able to use it so it’s about giving it back to the client in a way that helps them see how their portfolios perform against each other. The other thing we’re building this year is capex modelling. So we have these digital twins that are very detailed. And what we want to be able to do is let anyone use them. At the moment it’s high-level consultants that use them, build them and operate them. But we want pretty much anyone to be able to use them. The idea being that you can then model pretty much any capex thing you want in your building. So it could give you your return on investment and it could give you the energy usage reduction and the carbon reduction. Because you will eventually end up with what is a data room of the building, it becomes very useful when it comes to the sale or acquisition of that property. It effectively de-risks the sale. The buyer, if given access by the seller, could look into the data and say, ‘Well you decarbonisation goals are for 2035 and mine are for 2037. What happens to the capex model if I push those goals by two years?’ That gives them great data and insight into that property which may add value or certainly de-risk it. You have been behind the scenes working on your systems for 18 months now, what is the industry feedback now you are starting to take the product to market? For a new product that is effectively less than 18 months old, the feedback has been strong. Conversations are moving fast relative to how quickly the real estate sector as a whole tends to move. To send feedback, e-mail emily.wright@eg.co.uk or tweet @EmilyW_9 or @EGPropertyNews