The Challenge
Increasing efficiency to bring more value to client relationships.
Introba recognized that its existing approach to decarbonization planning, which relied on time-consuming in-person audits, couldn’t scale to meet the demands of large portfolio owners. As consultants helping building owners develop plans, they knew creating a decarbonization plan for a large portfolio, with the same level of refinement as a plan for an individual building, would be time- and cost-prohibitive, particularly for portfolios with different types of buildings in different locations.
To deliver real value, a portfolio decarbonization plan can’t rely on a one-size-fits-all approach. It needs to solve site-specific engineering challenges while accounting for the owner's goals, tenant requirements, and market conditions that shape how and when capital gets deployed. Introba needed a way to move through the early stages of analysis quickly, but existing tools – including emerging AI software platforms – lacked the engineering rigor, transparency, and customization potential needed by a world-class engineering firm.
The Solution
Creating a digitally-enabled consulting practice.
To meet that demand without sacrificing analytical depth, Introba partnered with Carbon Signal to automate early-stage portfolio analysis and build a general framework for integrating software into its decarbonization planning practice. The platform didn't replace in-person audits, detailed engineering analysis, or strategy development. Instead, it showed consultants where to focus their effort.
At the start of an engagement, Carbon Signal identifies which buildings and systems to prioritize and where on-the-ground data is needed to fill critical knowledge gaps. As the project progresses, it surfaces the most important improvement opportunities, viable decarbonization pathways, and the tradeoffs between them.
Because every client engagement is different, Introba also relies on custom features and data pipelines - including access to advanced model diagnostics - to support bespoke analysis and client deliverables. The Introba team works through both the web application and the API to upload data, build and adjust models, and extract results.
The Impact
Greater scale. Faster decisions.
For a recent project with the University of San Francisco, for example, the team adopted a hybrid approach for energy audits. They used Carbon Signal to build calibrated energy models for 20 buildings across the campus, and then picked six priority buildings for in-person audits. That gave the team a good sample set of data, which they used to fine-tune the final list of decarbonization interventions.
Using Carbon Signal, Introba was able to deliver a comprehensive decarbonization plan and reduce the project cost by almost $14,000 per building, representing a 72% reduction in cost from a traditional approach. Most of this came from a 56% reduction in labor hours for on-site surveys and analysis.
Bottom line – this hybrid-audit approach can make portfolio-wide decarbonization studies feasible at a scale and price point that traditional audits often can’t.
-Introba
Carbon Signal is now a core part of Introba’s consulting practice, allowing them to deliver unparalleled engineering guidance across more clients and larger portfolios. By streamlining early-stage analysis, Introba can quickly identify critical opportunities for improvement and test interventions, freeing up time and budget for the team to craft a detailed plan of action.
About Introba
Introba is a global building engineering and consulting firm founded in 2022, uniting Integral Group, Ross & Baruzzini, and Elementa into a single, integrated firm. Their teams work across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Serbia, Australia and Singapore, bringing together global insight and technical expertise to develop solutions that transform the built environment. They help clients improve the performance, reliability, and sustainability of building systems through mechanical, electrical, technology, security, and fire systems engineering, supported by digital advisory, systems integration, and sustainability consulting services.
