Why the Future of Decarbonized Buildings Depends on Collaboration, and How Cascade is Leading the Way

A new report from Verdantix, an independent research and advisory firm, highlights the importance of merging energy and carbon data tracking to achieve building decarbonization goals and the role that effective software can play. 

In its June 2025 report, Market Insight: The Intersection Of Carbon And Energy Management In Buildings, Verdantix found energy management and carbon management software are increasingly converging, with each software platform type aiming to incorporate some capabilities of the other, in order to meet growing demand for tools that can help businesses decarbonize on an asset level. 

Companies are facing increased regulatory and customer-driven pressure to shift from high-level climate targets to clear, measurable impacts, and they’re turning to software for help. 

While traditional energy and carbon management software solutions capture different data streams and track different priorities, organizations see growing convergence between their energy management and carbon management programs. Energy efficiency plays an important role in building decarbonization and in translating corporate climate targets into actionable processes at the building level. Seeing the emissions impact of energy efficiency projects helps make the connection for sustainability managers, while operations staff are driven by the systems optimization and cost-saving impacts of energy efficiency. 

Through Cascade Energy’s work developing energy and carbon management programs for corporate clients on an enterprise level, we know that data and software can’t solve the building decarbonization puzzle on their own. For over 30 years, Cascade has observed three distinct barriers for corporations:  

1. Misleading Data. As Josh Bachman, Vice President of Customer Engagement at Cascade, told Verdantix for their report, companies often have access to the energy and carbon data to pursue building decarbonization, but making the data usable requires significant effort, as firms must organize and standardize it on their own. 
2. Organizational Silos. Another challenge for many companies pursuing building decarbonization: it’s not just their data that is siloed, but their people are too. Tracking, standardizing, storing, and sharing different data streams is part of the puzzle, but ongoing collaboration between the people within those different departments is what sets apart the companies that truly succeed. When multiple teams are in communication with each other about decarbonization goals and day-to-day efforts are connected to each team’s priorities, progress is much more likely. If the data is in communication but the people aren’t, the results are less certain. 
3. Skill Gap. Once a team has reliable data and the motivation to act, they might still lack the expertise to identify energy efficiency and decarbonization opportunities. While facility operations managers are well versed in their building’s equipment, they may not know how to optimize energy efficiency without compromising safety, quality, or productivity. Acquiring this expertise—whether through hiring, training, or consulting—is crucial for developing a successful sustainability program. 

We recommend creating processes and storytelling around your data. Conduct monthly reviews, share dashboards in team huddles, and use storytelling to communicate your progress. The most successful organizations build processes so operators can see their own progress and compare it to their peers’. Cascade recently worked with a company whose corporate energy team used site-level energy intensity metrics from their compliance dataset to create internal dashboards, creating healthy competition among facilities. When operators can track and compare their own performance—as well as hold each other accountable—culture starts to shift. 

Starting in 2022, as we saw companies shift from solely energy and cost-saving goals to a growing awareness of and pressure to address climate goals, Cascade began integrating a climate-forward focus on the decarbonization impact of energy efficiency into our work. We saw the direct influence our energy efficiency work had on the scope 1 and 2 emissions of our customers and started evolving our work to better make that connection for them.  

That work includes how we’ve innovated within Gazebo™ – our energy management software platform. Gazebo was designed to facilitate the connection between single-site energy optimization and corporate-level financial and sustainability goals. Gazebo tracks energy efficiency projects and reports the impact of their expected and validated savings and emissions reduction results.  

“From identifying and developing energy savings initiatives to tracking progress and impact, [Gazebo] brings structure, insight, and power to our sustainability work,” said Javier Delgado-Garcia, Hard Services Lead for Pfizer–La Jolla Facilities. “The background energy monitoring is the cherry on the top—seamless and invaluable!”

Gazebo provides a hub where operations staff, sustainability managers, finance departments, and the C-suite can access real-time energy use data, track energy-saving projects, and generate reports to communicate the cost and carbon impacts of those projects to internal and external stakeholders.  

Today, Gazebo also supports building managers in achieving corporate-led climate goals.  

If you are struggling to meet your building decarbonization goals, we’d love to help. Reach out to us today to get started. 

About Verdantix 

Verdantix is the essential thought-leader for world-enhancing innovation. We support change-makers with our proprietary data, unique expertise and executive networks. Our impactful analysis is delivered via a digital platform, consulting engagements and in-person events to thousands of decision-makers in more than 100 countries. From offices in London, New York, and Boston, the Verdantix research team applies the principles of rigour, accuracy and curiosity to help our globally distributed clients solve their most complex challenges. verdantix.com