Building owners are often in the dark about their carbon pollution. A new algorithm could shed light on it

Starting this year, thousands of New York City buildings will have to start reducing their carbon emissions. But before that happens, homeowners need to understand how much pollution they generate.

Electricity alone accounts for 60% of total energy consumption in commercial buildings, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. There are many tools for converting an electricity bill into estimated carbon emissions, but many are based on rough estimates. With the growth of intermittent wind and solar power, knowing when you use electricity is almost as important as how much you use.

That’s why Nzero, a startup specializing in carbon tracking, developed a new algorithm, providing building owners with reports that estimate carbon pollution down to the hour.

Some owners whose buildings are equipped with advanced meters and sensors already have this data, but many do not. “Better data will give you better results,” Nzero CTO John Rula told TechCrunch, “but it shouldn’t be a blocker.”

The problem can be particularly frustrating for a class of real estate investment trusts, or REITs, favored by investors known as triple net leases. The REIT is responsible for a building’s emissions, but because the owner doesn’t pay for the utilities, it has little information about the pollution generated by the building.

“They are begging their customers to provide this data, but with very little success,” Rula said.

Using the building address and any additional information the owner can provide, including square footage and the types of heating and cooling systems it uses, Nzero can generate estimates that it believes are more precise than those of the owners before.

From there, the company’s software helps building owners identify improvements and renovations that will reduce emissions while being most cost-effective.

“There are all these different steps and hurdles, of which data collection is one, compliance reporting is another, but they’re not the end goal, right? » said Rula. “The ultimate goal is to promote and accelerate decarbonization. »