Host Jeff Nichols speaks with Ash Awad, President and Chief Market Officer at McKinstry, and a longtime leader at the intersection of buildings, energy systems, and climate innovation. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience, Ash shares his thoughts about how the built environment must fundamentally change over the next decade and challenges long-held assumptions about buildings, utilities, and energy efficiency— reframing them as active, essential players in the clean energy transition. Ash begins by reflecting on his career and an insight that has guided his work from the start: efficiency alone is rarely enough. Early projects taught him that energy improvements must deliver multiple benefits: comfort, health, mission alignment, and resilience in order to gain traction. He resists describing buildings in purely physical terms and instead, argues that buildings have historically been given a “pass”—designed to serve their immediate mission, while largely ignoring their massive environmental footprint. With buildings consuming roughly three-quarters of U.S. electricity and producing about 40% of emissions, that pass is no longer acceptable. Looking ahead, future buildings must do more and behave differently. A central theme of the episode is Ash’s vision for buildings as regenerative, grid-aligned systems. He explains that today’s energy system suffers from a profound disconnect between supply and demand—utilities are effectively blind to how buildings actually use power. This mismatch drives overbuilt infrastructure, peak-driven failures, and grid instability. In the future, buildings must operate in closer coordination with the grid, acting not just as consumers, but as flexible assets that help balance demand, absorb shocks, and even function like batteries. Ash dives deeply into the operational changes required to make this vision real. He outlines how fragmented building systems—HVAC, lighting, access control, scheduling currently operate in silos, preventing intelligent decision-making. Unlocking and democratizing building data, standardizing how systems communicate, and applying advanced analytics and AI are, in his view, non-negotiable steps toward changing building behavior at scale. The conversation also explores the shifting role of utilities. Ash acknowledges the immense constraints utilities face: regulatory, equity, reliability—but argues that they also hold a significant opportunity. With universal customer relationships but limited innovation offerings, utilities are uniquely positioned to deliver new services that cross the meter and help buildings operate more intelligently. Doing so will require both regulatory flexibility and cultural change. Finally, Ash shares an optimistic outlook rooted in people, not technology. While innovation, electrification, and new business models will reshape the industry, he believes the greatest source of confidence lies in the next generation of engineers and leaders—professionals who see climate action not as optional, but as core to their purpose. Ash Awad paints a compelling picture of a future where buildings are no longer part of the problem, but a central solution—actively supporting the grid, the environment, and human well-being. The transformation ahead is complex, but inevitable, and the time to rethink how buildings behave is now. The Reframe podcast is hosted by Jeff Nichols and presented by Pilotlight. If you have questions or feedback for the Reframe team, please email us: reframe@pilotlight.ai
