Runwise

Thanks John Skipper, Dan levy, and Christopher lima for leading discussions today at the kickoff for our speaker series on energy efficiency! And thanks to all the energy consultants from around the city that made it out to the event. We're looking forward to the next one!

Big congrats to our Chief Operating Officer, Kelly-Ann Corrigan on being listed as a 2024 Woman of the Year in Commercial Real Estate! https://hubs.li/Q02Rqvst0

The proposed NYC AC mandate could raise rents and increase carbon emissions, contradicting climate goals. Our President and Co-Founder discusses alternatives in the article linked below like passive cooling and targeted AC aid for low-income residents. https://hubs.li/Q02Rqqtm0

Buildings are not prepared for extreme weather and climate. Most are operating on antiquated technology from 50+ years ago and are not capable of detecting issues or adapting in real time to extreme conditions. As extreme weather has increased in frequency and intensity, this has become a tangible problem not just for building owners, but for those living and working in the buildings. In the article below, our president and cofounder, Lee Hoffman, talks about where the industry is headed and what can be done today to make buildings safer, cost less to operate, and more environmentally responsible.

Can gorgeous historic buildings ALSO be energy efficient? One of my absolute favorite Runwise buildings is a NYC landmark: The Hotel des Artistes. The creators of the building literally invented the live/work space. In 1914, a group of artists paid $250,000 for the parcel on W 67th Street to build a 20 story building, with 10 stories of living space and 10 stories of art studios. The apartments were the height of luxury at the time: 20 foot ceilings, up to 6 rooms per apartment, a grand ballroom, swimming pool, rooftop squash courts, and a restaurant on site. Imagine living here during the Roaring 20s.The list of notable tenants is pages long, including Norman Rockwell, Frank DuMond, and Charles Dana Gibson. Today, the two story windows give the outside world a glimpse of the stunning 20 foot lofted ceilings that provide some of the best sunlight you’ll find in an NYC apartment. And despite the name, this building is not actually a hotel you can stay in. It’s a co-op filled with apartments, but there is a restaurant on the first floor you can dine at. If you want to live in the building today, a 2-bedroom apartment will run you a couple million dollars. The building became a customer of Runwise four years ago when the management was looking to lower their energy bills and carbon emission - which can be a challenge in an old building. A lot of people think 100+ year old buildings can’t both preserve their history and be energy inefficient. But the Hotel des artistes (managed by AKAM) is a living, breathing example that you can. By simply installing Runwise’s smart controls, without replacing or redesigning any of the building, the building cut its fossil fuel usage by 37%. That’s the equivalent of 600 tons of CO2 that’s no longer put into NYC’s atmosphere. These changes will also help the building add over $500K in operating income to the building’s bottom line over the next ten years. Many people believe buildings can’t be multiple things at once. Hotel Des Artiste continues to prove them wrong.

What are the easiest and lowest cost ways to reduce or eliminate Local Law 97 fines? SiteCompli and our cofounder Lee teamed up in this awesome video to answer this exact question. https://hubs.li/Q02NB_420

Washington Gas is covering the cost of Runwise Smart Controls for 2 full years! If you're a Washington Gas customer, this is a great way to cut your energy costs by 20% without having to pay anything for the upgrades! Follow the link below to see if your building is eligible. This is only available for a limited time. https://hubs.li/Q02MsGtH0

Your building is burning money on cooling. When you think of giant energy wasting systems in buildings, you might think immediately of boilers and heating systems spewing out carbon emissions. But the second biggest source of energy waste is central cooling systems. Almost every central cooling system is running incredibly inefficiently. We break down cooling systems and how to make them more efficient in this video: https://hubs.li/Q02LzZ2f0

Where did Runwise come from? Authority Magazine wrote a profile on our President and Co-Founder, Lee Hoffman: "We wondered what would happen if we owned all the responsibility of running a building’s entire heating system. Customers loved it." https://hubs.li/Q02KYbYJ0

When you think about pollution and carbon emissions, you probably think about cars. But you'd be wrong. It's surprising, but in New York City alone, more than two thirds of emissions come from buildings. According to the Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice, almost half of the carbon emissions can be attributed to only 2% of buildings. While this may sound like a daunting figure, I don’t think the imbalance itself is an issue. There are over one million structures in New York City, but only a handful of them are massive skyscrapers that house tens of thousands of workers every day. So I think it’s okay if the small handful of buildings used by thousands far outweigh the emissions of all the smaller buildings with only a few tenants. But I think this statistic shows us that we can make much more progress in fighting climate change by focusing on a couple of areas that can have massive impact. Instead of worrying about how we get millions of people to use paper straws instead of plastic, couldn’t we help the environment a lot more just by making the couple of largest buildings in the city a bit more energy efficient? The lowest hanging fruit is to simply stop over-heating and over-cooling buildings. That alone would slash fossil usage by 25%.  Buildings use too much energy because the majority of them are running on controls from the 1960s and 1970s (even if they were installed last year!).These controls literally are just timers, and because they have no idea what the temperatures are inside buildings, they ALWAYS overshoot. Fortunately smart building controls not only have sensors throughout the building to know what the temperature is at any given moment, but they can actually anticipate warmer weather later in the afternoon and proactively adjust the temperature accordingly. NYC has admirable and ambitious goals to reduce emissions from the city’s massive buildings: - 100% net-zero new buildings by 2030 - No fossil-fuel hook-ups in new construction and major renovations by 2030 - 20% reduction in energy consumption for City buildings by 2025 But there is only one viable path to hitting them, and it doesn’t involve cars. It’s using technology to operate NYC’s buildings more economically AND environmentally efficiently.