Pique Behind the Curtain Vol. 3

Pique Behind the Curtain Vol. 3

Welcome to our third edition of Pique Behind the Curtain, our weekly newsletter debuting new content, highlighting great storytelling, and sharing behind-the-scenes footage from our films.

75F: Making Dumb Buildings Smarter

Commercial buildings are the fourth largest emitter of CO2 worldwide - with 67% of their emissions coming from heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (aka HVAC).

75F uses machine learning & cloud computing to clean that up. Founded in Minnesota by Deepinder Singh, the company’s origin story doesn’t start in the office but at home.

“It just so happened my daughter was one, she would wake up in the middle of the night crying and I found it's because the temperature in her room was dropping about 10 degrees at night.” Deepinder explains.

Fast forward almost a decade, and 75F has built a full suite of control systems that measure things like temperature, humidity, light occupancy, CO2 levels and more. If 75F was deployed across the US, it would have an impact equivalent to taking nearly 70 million cars off the road. That’s avoiding 336 million tons of CO2 emissions!

By making “dumb” buildings smarter, Singh and 75F are turning efficiency into major cost savings and significant emissions reductions.

Smart, right? Watch the film here.

People talk a lot about a circular economy. Ben Christensen has figured out how to build one at Cambium Carbon. Ben shared that more trees fall in cities than in national forests and most end up in landfill. Cambium Carbon helps save that wood, turn it into something valuable, like furniture, and replant the trees that come down. See, it’s a circle!

Two Big Da Vinci has become one of our favorite YouTube channels of late. Ricky breaks down the future of technology, energy, and transportation. Last week though he talked about the whitest paint ever - an innovative solution to keep cool that has begun to be deployed in parts of India.

Every week we'll share recommendations from readers about climate films and documentaries to watch. This week’s rec comes from Jason Grillo at AirMiners. Just reply here with your suggestion, if you've got one.

• Biggest Little Farm - A couple are followed through their successes and failures as they work to develop a sustainable farm on 200 acres outside of Los Angeles. (Hulu)