If your demand response program looks good on paper but fails under scrutiny, you don’t have a performance problem. You have a measurement problem.

Ana-Paula Issa, CEO of Encycle, explains why.

Utilities are offering more incentives than ever. AI, analytics, and advanced controls are being deployed across portfolios.

And yet many operators still miss demand response targets, struggle to defend savings to finance, or confuse demand response with demand management.

In this episode of The Climate Gap: Quick Cuts, Ben Muwoki sits down with Ana-Paula Issa, CEO of Encycle, to cut through the fog around “utility grade,” multi-site AI, and why scale breaks so many energy programs.

Ana-Paula has been working directly with utilities and large retail portfolios since 2008. She explains what actually holds up when incentives, baselines, bids, and finance reviews are involved and why many programs fail quietly until the end of the year.

We dig into:

• What “utility grade” really means and why it leaves no place to hide
• Why baselines are the most common failure point in M&V
• How multi-site scale breaks single-building AI assumptions
• The real difference between demand response, demand management, and consumption management
• Why demand response targets are missed more often because of misalignment than technology
• How portfolio thresholds can wipe out DR revenue even when most sites perform
• Why incentives often fail to get credited to the right buildings or teams

About Ana-Paula Issa

Ana-Paula Issa is the CEO of Encycle. She has spent nearly two decades working at the intersection of building controls, demand management, and utility programs, partnering directly with utilities and large multi-site operators. At Encycle, she focuses on turning demand flexibility and efficiency programs into measurable, defensible outcomes at scale.

Watch if you are:

• An owner or operator managing large, multi-site portfolios
• An energy or sustainability leader accountable to finance
• A vendor selling AI, controls, or DR programs into portfolios
• Trying to turn utility incentives into outcomes that survive scrutiny

Utility programs do not fail because teams lack technology. They fail because measurement, alignment, and incentives are misunderstood.

The Climate Gap is powered by Element Six.

Element Six specializes in addressing talent challenges across the built environment and climate technology sectors. Partnering with technology vendors and solutions providers delivering decarbonization solutions, helping them find the leaders and teams they need to scale.

Decarbonizing the built environment takes bold ideas and brilliant people. Element Six brings them together.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recorded live at FutureBuilt, Steve Hamby joins Joe Aamidor (Aamidor Consulting) and Lewis Martin (Element Six) to talk about what actually happens when facilities and real estate teams try to deploy technology at scale.

Steve has spent his career working across facilities technology, IoT, and connected solutions. He has advised operators, vendors, and industry groups on how technology is adopted, where it breaks down, and why outcomes often lag behind capability.

This conversation focuses on the gap between promise and execution. Why connected buildings are still hard to deliver. Why data ownership remains unclear. Why AI and IoT adoption continue to move more slowly than expected inside large portfolios.

No theory. Just lived experience from someone who has been in the middle of it.

Topics include:

• What connected buildings really look like in practice
• Where FM and real estate tech adoption stalls
• Data ownership and accountability
• What operators should demand from vendors
• What actually drives measurable outcomes

Recorded live at FutureBuilt.

Hosted by Joe Aamidor and Lewis Martin.

The Climate Gap is powered by Element Six.

Element Six specializes in addressing talent challenges across the built environment and climate technology sectors. Partnering with technology vendors and solutions providers delivering decarbonization solutions, helping them find the leaders and teams they need to scale.

Decarbonizing the built environment takes bold ideas and brilliant people. Element Six brings them together.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of the DLWJ, we’re joined by Maureen Ehrenberg, one of the most respected leaders in the global built environment.

Maureen currently serves as Executive Managing Director of Strategic Growth and Solutions Development at Sireas Global Real Estate Advisors and is President Elect of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) for 2026. Her career spans decades of executive leadership at organisations like WeWork, JLL, CBRE and Grubb & Ellis, and she’s a recognised authority on strategic real estate operations, digital transformation, and facilities management at scale.

In our conversation, Maureen cuts through the noise around technology in CRE and FM to focus on what actually drives value inside real portfolios.

We explore:

• Why data infrastructure still outpaces dashboards
• How investors and operators talk past each other
• What happens when you lean on AI without solving data readiness
• The skills and organisational changes that actually move the needle

A grounded discussion about what it really takes to move the built environment forward.

The Climate Gap is powered by Element Six.

Element Six specializes in addressing talent challenges across the built environment and climate technology sectors. Partnering with technology vendors and solutions providers delivering decarbonization solutions, helping them find the leaders and teams they need to scale.

Decarbonizing the built environment takes bold ideas and brilliant people. Element Six brings them together.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.