Case Study: Slipstream real estate decarb market research

Telesto’s team worked closely with Slipstream to assess the current building decarbonization market and identify strategic opportunities for Slipstream

Challenge

Slipstream creates and scales energy efficiency and renewable programs for a clean energy economy. For the last 40 years Slipstream has partnered with utilities, local and state governments, and regulatory agencies in offering financial programs that align with green energy initiatives. As part of Slipstream’s renewed strategy, Telesto’s team worked closely with Slipstream to assess the current building decarbonization market and identify strategic opportunities for Slipstream, delivering on the following objectives:

Identifying market and regulatory trends impacting the building decarbonization financing that Slipstream should base its strategy on and plan forward
Assessing the biggest market opportunities from government agencies and banks that Slipstream could leverage, along with their growth potential
Prioritizing the best opportunities that Slipstream is uniquely equipped to leverage, with existing resources

To meet these objectives, Telesto leveraged extensive desk research, expert interviews, and engagement with Slipstream leaders to develop evaluation criteria for prioritizing opportunities.

Our approach

We combined rigorous market research, stakeholder engagement, and forward-looking forecasts to deliver a tailored recommendation to Slipstream:

1. Market and regulatory research

Identified both positive and negative trends impacting the availability and growth of green funding, from a market and government agency perspective
Forecasted the growth of six major energy financing programs in the next 3-5 years
Uncovered additional funding structures that Slipstream could explore

2. Stakeholder Engagement & Industry Insights

Conducted surveys of subject matter experts and stakeholders
Identified and socialized key criteria to evaluate opportunities, based on Slipstream’s capabilities, relationships, and mission

3. Prioritization Exercise

Developed and applied a rubric to assess ~25 available programs, including factors such as competitor dynamic, internal capabilities, and funding growth potential
Visualized findings in an easy-to-understand matrix format for an executive audience

Results & Impact

✔ Strategic Recommendation – Telesto’s detailed assessment and analysis of the current building decarbonization funding opportunities set Slipstream’s strategic priorities for the next 3-5 years, focusing on where they can best deliver value

✔ Competitive Positioning – By identifying the landscape and Slipstream’s competitive advantages, Slipstream could prioritize opportunities where it can avoid being crowded out by competition or overinvest in areas of low value

✔ Building a green energy future – Our findings and recommendations help Slipstream and its clients in advancing the US’ green energy initiatives and drive impact in climate change

Conclusion

Our work provided Slipstream with the tools and insight to refocus their product strategy by identifying the state of play and methodically narrowing down the best potential opportunities for the near-term. By leveraging market research and our sustainability expertise, we enabled Slipstream’s leadership to invest where they can best address the market gap with low risk and high differentiated value.

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