First Global CaaS E-Summit Shares Exclusive Insights into the Bright Future of Servitisation
Global Cooling as a Service E-Summit
With 1,141 registrations from 82 countries, 50 speakers, and more than 16 hours of content, the 1 December Cooling as a Service (CaaS) E-Summit gave a comprehensive look into the servitisation landscape – within the cooling sector and beyond. The Virtual Platform can still be accessed online for an entire year, so be sure to (re)visit it here!
After months of hard work, the build-up to the first-ever Global CaaS E-Summit materialised into a world-class virtual event that brought together stakeholders in the servitisation space in a way that has never been done before. By sharing the experiences and expertise throughout the value chain – from investors to technology providers and users – the event showed how truly revolutionary the CaaS business model has been throughout the world and the potential it has to scale up sustainable cooling and contribute to a net-zero built environment.
“The Global CaaS E-Summit event highlighted the benefits of servitisation as a way to bring energy-efficient cooling systems to the market, while reducing waste in the industries taking part and generating value for the stakeholders involved,” explained Thomas Motmans of the Basel Agency for Sustainable Energy (BASE), organisers and hosts of the event.
The free-to-attend event was hosted on the Swapcard platform, giving attendees the opportunity to network and engage with anyone else in attendance, including the speakers. The sessions were very interactive with great participation from the audience by means of engaging in polls and posting questions and comments to the speakers.
The speaker program ran from 9am CET to 20:30 CET as to accommodate the ASEAN, African and LAC time zones with specific sessions tailored to each region placed strategically at an appropriate time to make the content more accessible. Three parallel sessions were also included during the morning, as well as in the afternoon, giving participants a choice to deep dive into the area most applicable to their line of work. The afternoon sessions have been translated to Spanish and uploaded on the virtual platform.
Snapshot overview of key messages
The E-Summit programme provided a comprehensive overview of how the CaaS model works, where it has been applied, and what the future of servitisation looks like. With 50 speakers spread throughout 14 sessions, the event shared a wealth of knowledge from the key three regions of interest – ASEAN, Africa and LAC . (See the speaker agenda and more info on the speakers.)
The day kicked off with a welcome and introduction session to set the context for the day. Dan Hamza-Goodacre from the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Programme (KCEP) and COP26 highlighted the important role that cooling plays and explained that CaaS can remove the burden of cooling from the end user to the benefit of all – including the climate. A clear trend towards servitisation was shown world-wide – not just in the cooling sector. Dave Mackerness from KAER then made an inspiring speech on the disruptive business model and how it strongly benefits the customers, business growth and sustainability. “CaaS links sustainability to profit – and if you want to put sustainability in the fore-front of any organisation – if you can link it to profit, that’s your best bet”, said Mackerness.
The first case study panel shared experiences from CaaS projects successfully implemented in Africa and India. Four technology providers discussed how they have been applying the CaaS model in their regions, highlighting the benefits and talking about the challenges they faced along the way. Various panellists echoed that there is a great potential to deploy sustainable cooling solutions in these regions, but that market barriers including higher upfront investments, lack of trust in the performance of new technology, and prioritisation of investments in core business activities.. CaaS offers a solution to this challenge. “Choosing the right customers who share the same values and goals as you and believe in the CaaS business model is really the key. If you focus on the people, they can really help you implement this business model.” said Mackerness from Kaer during this session.
Three parallel sessions followed, looking deeper into the toolkit and the mechanics of the model, the investor’s perspective, and the end user perspective respectively. On the investment side, attendees heard how the concept of servitisation has been around for a long time and that standardisation of contracts is very important. The end user perspective was provided by two users of CaaS, showing the incredible range possible with the model. From a real estate developer operating a CaaS project in India to a small-scale pay-per-user user in Nigeria – the audience could hear straight from the source what difference CaaS makes in the day-to-day life of end users.
A very topical session on CaaS and COVID-19 vaccine distribution followed, uniting the perspectives throughout the value chain on one single panel, moderated by subject matter expert – Professor Toby Peters from the University of Birmingham. A lack of infrastructure, particularly in relation to the cold chain, was highlighted as a challenge for vaccine distribution, as well as an opportunity to transition to more climate friendly refrigeration equipment. That is where CaaS comes in. “In the vaccine distribution cold chain, Cooling as a Service is enabling state-of-the-art technologies (both on the equipment and on the data side) to be combined as to bring the right solution to the end customer,” summarised Dimitris Karamitsos from BASE in his moderator’s wrap up of the session.
The next session took a broader view: looking at the future of servitisation in an evolving world. Another session on this topic followed later in the day, with different panelists looking at other industries and solutions. The first session included five experts looking at various servitisation models such as heating, lighting and efficiency as a service. A clear trend towards clients wanting services instead of assets was highlighted. The demand is there and servitisation allows for more energy efficient, sustainable solutions to be employed.
The afternoon broad view session (also with five speakers) echoed this message, looking more specifically at how servitisation is transforming businesses as well. “The 2020s will be the era of product-as-a-service models for sustainable development. We will see it in the whole building space, including heating and cooling. We look forward to this business model being developed even faster. We love what you’re doing in Cooling as a Service,” said Tomas Naucler from McKinsey.
The second part of the E-Summit kicked off at 15:15 CET which enabled guests from the LAC region to connect as well. The opening session looked at the role of cooling in combating climate change and more specifically, CaaS as a game changer for this industry. Jessica Brown from K-CEP described how well CaaS is positioned to ensure cooling is delivered with clean and efficient solutions. Iain Campbell from the Rocky Mountain Institute stressed the importance of looking at life cycle costs and not just upfront expenditure – one of the key benefits the CaaS model offers.
This was followed by a very thought-provoking and engaging interview with Jigar Shah, Co-founder of Generate Capital and SunEdison, moderated by Daniel Magallón, CEO of BASE. Shah shared his experience with the solar industry and spoke about applying these lessons to the cooling sector. He sees a clear opportunity in focussing on the market sectors where the end users are desperate with outdated equipment but no CAPEX to finance an upgrade. Here, CaaS will accelerate the adoption of natural refrigerants and energy efficiency equipment, according to Shah. He spoke very highly of the CaaS Initiative: “I appreciate the wonderful work that you are doing in inspiring and promoting this concept [CaaS] because I think it is critical to accelerating the use of green refrigerants and high energy-efficiency solutions for heating, ventilation and air conditioning,” he said.
The afternoon’s three parallel sessions followed under the same themes as the morning ones, welcoming new speakers to the panels to share a different perspective. The end user session included five speakers and was moderated by shecco’s CEO Marc Chasserot, who brought the natural refrigerant perspective. Perspectives were also shared from Dominika Czerwinska director of memberships and regional networks from the World Green Building Council (WGBC), Rafael Echevarne, Director General at The Airport Council International from LAC, Andrea Fernández, engineering manager at Gentor (a building developer implementing CaaS), and Andre Snyman General Manager at Lynca (a CaaS end user in South Africa).
Many benefits were highlighted for all parties involved. Czerwinska from the WGBC particularly spoke about the role of this business model in achieving a net zero future. “This pairing of delivering on efficiency while removing barriers to the uptake is what makes CaaS and the servitisation of buildings such a really powerful solution for helping the industry reach our net zero targets,” she said. Snyman from Lynca outlined how CaaS enabled them to retrofit their plant with clean refrigerants powered by solar, while reducing their operating expenses linked to cooling by more than 20%.
Before a short wrap-up on the key takeaways by the BASE team, a six-speaker case study panel followed, looking at implementing CaaS in a myriad of different applications and regions, including: a major Caribbean University in Grenada; commercial buildings in Costa Rica and Argentina; the agricultural cold chain in India; and even in sustainable transport refrigeration. The potential of the CaaS model within the scope of post-COVID-19 recovery was mentioned on various occasions. “We’ve seen a significant growth for the model and we expect that to grow further in the next years…we believe this is an important model in the recovery of the pandemic,” said Alfredo Nicastro from MGM Innova.
The day concluded with the three moderators from BASE sharing key takeaways from the day and urging attendees to take action and join the servitisation revolution. “We hope that now you have no more doubt about the fact that Cooling as a Service is the most sustainable way to cool buildings and operate businesses!” said Motmans. “We encourage you to integrate what you have learnt today into the business you are developing; to identify what you need to transform Cooling as a Service from an appealing concept into concrete projects. This is the right time window to transition to Cooling as a Service, don’t miss the train!”
Revisit the E-Summit content any time
If you missed any of the sessions or would like to share the presentations with others – the platform will stay online as a virtual library for a whole year! You can view recorded panels from investors, solution providers, end-users, industry experts and more.
Simply log back into the event and watch whichever session you choose. It is also possible to register post-event, so feel free to share the link with your colleagues and/or customers – new participants can use the code CaaS! to access the platform.
More to follow, stay in the know
More in-depth articles on each E-Summit session will follow in the coming months, so make sure to subscribe to the CaaS monthly newsletter to keep up to date. Register here .