Vancouver, British Columbia and Santa Monica, California
Wednesday, October 4th, 2023
Vancouver and Santa Monica based Lightspark Software Inc. — developer of energy efficiency and carbon measurement tools, SaaS providing banks, utilities, and cities with better data to make carbon reduction and energy efficiency decisions for their customers easier — announced today that Sadhu Johnston, a global leader in greening cities has joined their advisory board.
“If we are really going to scale energy retrofits across North America, we need to use machine learning and AI to identify highest energy and carbon using buildings, develop retrofit programs, and support homeowners in making wise decisions. I’ve joined Lightspark as an advisor because their technology is best in class and can play a critical role in helping cities, utilities, homeowners, and others to reduce energy and carbon emissions in our existing buildings” Sadhu said. “We need to massively scale-up retrofits and use cutting-edge approaches – Lightspark will be key in doing that.”
Johnston was City Manager and Deputy City Manager for over a decade in the City of Vancouver, BC overseeing aggressive and world-leading climate and energy initiatives as well as led the City of Chicago’s climate initiatives as the City’s Chief Environmental Officer.
Lightspark’s Carbon Navigator product first accurately measures the carbon emissions in their building stock with their machine-learning carbon data methodology, which they have done for over 19 cities, 1 utility and 1 bank. The Lightspark Engage platform, recently piloted in Alberta, gets to the heart of outcomes for Net Zero in residential retrofits. That is persuading, educating and providing tools for homeowners to make smart decisions about reducing energy, carbon and improving comfort, while streamlining the workflows and steps to improving their homes, getting valuable rebates and loans.
“Sadhu brings an immense understanding of the challenges and strategies required for moving large complex organizations towards transformational change,” said James Riley, CEO of Lightspark. “His experience, strategic thinking and his network will be of real benefit to Lightspark as we expand to the United States and globally with our software solution, helping our peers understand the value of technology that does good.”
Sadhu Johnson
Sadhu is a thought leader on cities. He was the City Manager of Vancouver, BC from 2016 until 2021 where he was responsible for managing the operations of the City, including oversight of a budget of over $1.6B and over 7,000 staff. As City Manager he spearheaded initiatives to address the growing housing, homelessness and climate change issues in Vancouver and oversaw the Greenest City Action Plan. Previously he was the Chief Environmental Officer of Chicago and Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Richard M. Daley where he led the development of the first climate action plan in a major North American city. He is co-author of “The Guide to Greening Cities” and is a co-founder of the Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) and is on the board of the Canadian Urban Institute (CUI).
About Lightspark
Lightspark’s Mission is to build a sustainable future by accelerating the engagement and ease of use of energy efficiency programs through an intelligent software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that makes energy efficiency choices easier. The integrated digital platform gives utilities tools to increase program success through better data to manage the effectiveness and reduce the cost of delivering energy efficiency programs, while increasing conversion and improving customer service scores. For consumers, it helps make sense of the benefits of energy efficiency, improves the ability to engage with these programs and helps accelerate cost reductions on their energy bill.