Dominika Czerwinska of the World Green Building Council encourages building owners and operators to consider the pay-for-service CaaS business model.
The World Green Business Council (WGBC), aglobal action network comprised of around 70 Green Building Councils around the globe, supports the cooling-as-a-service (CaaS) business model as a way to accelerate the move toward net-zero GHG emissions in buildings, according to a new interview with the Basel Agency for Sustainable Energy (BASE).
By providing an alternative to upfront payment models, CaaS is designed to overcome key market and financial barriers and accelerate the adoption of energy-efficient cooling technologies and the use of climate-friendly refrigerant gases.
BASE, along with the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP), manages the CaaS Initiative, which has been working on contracts, pricing models marketing material and events to support the implementation of CaaS projects. The initiative is supporting projects in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. shecco, publisher of this website, is a supporting partner of Cooling as a Service Initiative.
“The CaaS Initiative is perfectly aligned with our mission,” said Dominika Czerwinska, Director, Membership and Regional Networks, WGBC, in an eight-minute video interview with Carla Della Maggiora, Senior Climate Change Finance Specialist, BASE. The video is posted at the end of this article and on the BASE website.
CaaS, noted Czerwinska, addresses the need for clean and efficient cooling through a new business model with “financial tools that can help recapitalize technology providers to provide cooling as a pay-per-service to their customers.”
In addition to that, the CaaS model “influences the supply chain” so that different cooling technologies can be designed “for reuse instead of obsolescence,” she said, “and therefore they are supporting a more circular economy.”
WGBC and BASE partnership
A member of the UN Global Compact, the WGBC aims to catalyze the uptake of sustainable buildings, focusing on climate action, health and well-being, and resources and circularity. It works with businesses, organizations and governments to drive the ambitions of the Paris Agreement and UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development.
Czerwinska noted that by partnering, WBGC, based in Toronto, Canada, and BASE, located in Basel, Switzerland, “can share this very important solution across our large members network.”
In the video, she also talks about the importance of prioritizing cooling for buildings to reduce their emissions, as well as how CaaS can accelerate the transition of the built environment to net-zero emissions. She also spoke about why she would encourage building owners and operators to consider CaaS.
“When you engage with CaaS, you reduce the risk of your building under-performing,” said Czerwinska. “It reduces the cost and burden of having inefficient or faulty equipment. It saves the building owner from the burden of having to do all the market research for all the technologies and best solutions out there. And it ensures that the service provider has a vested interest in the maintenance and upkeep of cooling equipment in the long-term.”
