Greenwave at SUMA 2026: Smarter Buildings, Stronger Communities

The 2026 SUMA Convention brought together local government leaders from across Saskatchewan, and Greenwave Innovations was proud to be participate as a contributor to some of the convention's most forward-looking conversations.

A Breakfast Worth Waking Up For

On the morning of April 15, Greenwave's Dean Clark took the stage at the Climate Caucus Breakfast Session: Advancing Municipal Energy Solutions, hosted at the REAL District in Regina. Joining him was Gary Singh, Account Executive from Johnson Controls — a world leader in smart and sustainable buildings.

The session, organized by Climate Caucus, was designed for local elected leaders to explore practical pathways toward energy and sustainability action — even in the face of constrained municipal budgets.

Dean and Gary's presentation, "Leveraging Private Capital to Facilitate Deep Building Retrofits," laid out a data-driven case for how municipalities can pursue meaningful energy upgrades in public buildings through self-financing models — reducing the upfront cost burden while delivering long-term, measurable savings. The takeaway was clear: deep retrofits don't have to wait for the next capital budget cycle.

Addressing a Real and Persistent Problem

The conversation struck a chord because it spoke directly to a challenge many municipal leaders in the room know well. Public entities across the country are struggling to address deferred maintenance and aging infrastructure due to limited financial and personnel resources. Aging building equipment quietly drains budgets through elevated utility and maintenance costs, yet without the capital to replace those assets, organizations can find themselves stuck in a cycle: spending money on operational inefficiencies that could otherwise be redirected toward the very upgrades needed to break the pattern.

Traditional performance contracts have been one avenue to address this, but they've generated mixed results. The core issue is accuracy — when energy savings projections are built from utility bill data alone, the models carry inherent uncertainty. Without the ability to precisely project savings or credibly measure and verify actual results, guaranteed performance structures can introduce significant risk for all parties involved.

A Re-Imagined Approach to Performance Contracting

This is where the Greenwave and Johnson Controls partnership brings something genuinely different to the table. Together, the two companies have re-imagined what performance contracting can look like when it's grounded in real data.

Johnson Controls' Sustainable Infrastructure team enables capital replacement through guaranteed contracts with turn-key project execution — removing the complexity and resource burden from the municipality. Greenwave Innovations contributes accurate, asset-level equipment health and operational cost metrics through its Greensense platform, enabling precise ROI-based prioritization of retrofits and delivering independent, third-party measurement and verification of results.

The outcome is an Energy-as-a-Service model where capital upgrades pay for themselves through the operational savings they generate. Organizations are now well-positioned to replace aging infrastructure with new, energy-efficient assets — without waiting for budget approval cycles or taking on undue financial risk.

By replacing assumptions with real-time data, the partnership addresses the uncertainty that has historically made performance contracting a hard sell. The guarantees become more credible. The results become auditable. And the pathway to upgraded, efficient buildings becomes significantly more accessible for municipalities that have been waiting on the sidelines.

Three Days of Conversations at Booth 32

Beyond the breakfast session, the Greenwave team — Dean Clark, Christie Gamble, Pierre-André Ranger, and Chetan Goyal — spent three days at Booth 32 connecting with municipal administrators, facility managers, and elected officials from communities of all sizes.

The conversations were wide-ranging. Some municipalities were just beginning to think about how to get better visibility into their building portfolios. Others were further along, actively exploring tools to support ESG reporting or make more defensible capital planning decisions. What stood out across all of them was a genuine appetite for practical solutions — tools that work within real-world constraints and deliver value that decision-makers can point to.

Greenwave's Greensense platform, including both the Utility Bill Manager and Building Sub-Monitoring products, drew consistent interest as municipal teams recognized the value of moving from manual, fragmented utility tracking toward centralized, data-driven insight.

Why Municipal Partnerships Matter

Saskatchewan's municipalities manage a significant share of the province's building stock — arenas, administrative buildings, water treatment facilities, libraries, and more. Many of these buildings are aging, and the cost of operating them is rising. At the same time, municipalities are being asked to demonstrate progress on sustainability commitments with fewer resources than their counterparts in larger provinces.

The conversations at SUMA reinforced that this need is alive and well across Saskatchewan. Greenwave looks forward to continuing those discussions and supporting more communities in making their buildings work better for the people who depend on them.

Thank You, SUMA

To every municipal leader who stopped by Booth 32, attended the Climate Caucus Breakfast, or simply took a few minutes to talk about what's happening in their community — thank you. These conversations are what drive Greenwave's work forward, and the 2026 SUMA Convention was a reminder of just how much thoughtful, collaborative energy exists in Saskatchewan's municipal sector.

Greenwave Innovations looks forward to staying connected and continuing to support the communities doing this important work.

Interested in learning how Greenwave and Johnson Controls can support your municipality's building portfolio? Visit greenwaveinnovations.ca or reach out at info@greenwaveinnovations.ca.