WatchWire’s INTEGRATE ‘23 Bridges the Gap Between Energy and Sustainability
NEW YORK (PRWEB) May 09, 2023 -- On Thursday, April 27th, WatchWire held its first annual INTEGRATE User Conference at the beautiful Virgin Hotels New York City, showcasing sweeping views of Midtown and the Empire State Building. The event aimed to bring together WatchWire users and industry leaders across energy and sustainability teams to create a uniquely collaborative and educational space that addressed the issues facing the ESG space today.
As the name implies, WatchWire’s first annual INTEGRATE conference was focused on bridging the gap between energy and sustainability to facilitate a pragmatic and action-oriented approach over far-reaching goal proclamations that are not grounded in data-driven plans. WatchWire’s CEO, Andy Anderson, set the tone for the day in his opening address by highlighting the importance of providing tangible data and logistical steps when setting bold decarbonization and environmental goals to avoid “greenwishing”. Avoiding greenwishing means taking action over words, which quickly became the overarching theme of INTEGRATE.
The conference’s headlining keynote was delivered by NYU’s Associate Dean at the Center of Public Affairs, Dr. Carolyn Kissane. Dr. Kissane opened with a compelling conversation on energy security, the renewable energy transition, the issues currently facing New York City, as well as how sustainability ties these ideas together. She asked thought-provoking questions like, “How do we reconcile the new demands and expectations surrounding sustainability, while ensuring we maintain energy security?”, and “How do we marry the ideas of energy security with climate security?” Dr. Kissane ended with a hopeful message, stating that in her experience, she has seen a rise in not only students’ interest in the topics at hand but in delivering solutions that mark a real change in the industry.
Following the inspiring keynote, WatchWire’s CTO, Syed Huda, introduced a number of exciting features and enhancements coming to the platform in 2023 and beyond, with a focus on sustainability goal tracking, REC tracking, carbon accounting, and even made mention of Artificial Intelligence and ChatGPT’s future role in WatchWire.
INTEGRATE featured two panels to open very different conversations around the issues and challenges with sustainability management, plus the state of peak load management and demand response in 2023. While there is often a dichotomy between sustainability and energy topics, the two panels managed to integrate the two. Not only did the Sustainability Management panel focus on ESG challenges, but addressed tactical ways in which chief engineers and property managers are working towards broader sustainability goals. Conversely, the Demand Response panel discussed the logistics behind implementing such projects and how they contribute to ESG performance.
Between the panels, INTEGRATE attendees were broken into working groups based on several different WatchWire use cases, like Carbon Accounting, Budgeting, Measurement & Verification, & Goal Tracking, where our customer success team demonstrated WatchWire’s countless capabilities and worked with clients to achieve their particular needs.
INTEGRATE offered attendees a unique combination of education, networking, and thorough user training. Attendees spanning various industries and responsibilities engaged in thought-provoking discussions over the course of the day, tackling the challenges they face in sustainability and how they utilize WatchWire. Some feedback we received from attendees was:
- “Very well organized and the time allocated for the opening speech, keynote speech, panels, training, and networking was perfect. Very nice venue and good food also. I found it to be a worthwhile and inspiring seminar.”
- “Bringing together individuals from all sides of WatchWire's diverse clientele provided varying perspectives and areas of expertise.”
- “The panels were very good, networking time was balanced well, training seminars were direct and brief.”
To those that attended INTEGRATE ‘23, thank you! We are so pleased with the turnout and the engagement from our clients. We cannot wait for next year’s INTEGRATE ‘24! Learn more about WatchWire’s use cases and capabilities, plus stay up to date on upcoming events, by going to http://www.watchwire.ai or following us on LinkedIn.
Nicolette Brenden, WatchWire, http://www.watchwire.ai, 1 3478974861, [email protected]
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