Did you know real estate causes 40% of global emissions? Yep, your home or office could be a huge climate culprit, but one startup is changing this fast! Meet UpGreen, the London-based startup making climate action affordable and takes a different approach by identifying and combining feasible projects, ensuring their execution, and verifying that promised returns are achieved.
‘Klarna’ of retrofit
UpGreen is launching an AI-driven platform to revolutionise real estate retrofitting, developed with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) support. The platform pinpoints significant upgrades throughout property portfolios, optimising energy efficiency, cutting costs, and improving property performance values. The funding originates from UKRI’s £7 million Technology Missions Fund, allocated through the Bridge AI programme.
Just as Klarna made online shopping more accessible by offering customers a “buy now, pay later” option with zero extra charges, UpGreen applies the same principle to sustainability upgrades.
Puja Balachander, founder of UpGreen, shared exclusively with TFN: “With this funding, UpGreen aims to revolutionise the real estate industry. Our platform minimises upfront CAPEX for retrofits by optimising projects to meet minimum EPC compliance while reducing management and administrative costs by 66% through automated workflows for coordinating installers and tenants.”
How UpGreen boosts ROI in energy
Founded in 2024 in London by Puja Balachander, an Oxford alumnus and Director of Venture at Carbon13, UpGreen is built to assist commercial property owners and their value chains in cutting costs and CO₂ emissions.
The platform transforms energy efficiency upgrades from compliance burdens into investments, making them more accessible, faster, and cost-effective for property owners. For tenants, it offers lower energy bills and improved sustainability without upfront costs.
Balachander told TFN exclusively: “This was very much a market need. The retrofit industry struggles with implementing sustainable and financially viable changes at scale. Despite the urgency, solutions exist but are too slow to penetrate the market.”
She added: “The built environment is responsible for 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet existing solutions are either prohibitively expensive or fail to deliver clear business value. Many stakeholders don’t know where to start. Too many solutions with ambiguous ROI make it hard to prioritise effective interventions. Moreover, the industry lacks standard frameworks for scalability, which complicates measuring and comparing retrofit outcomes.”
UpGreen addresses these barriers by offering a financing model that eliminates upfront costs for energy-efficient upgrades. It helps businesses identify cost-effective improvements by analysing energy consumption and potential savings, while trusted installers ensure minimal disruption during the upgrade process.
Balachander commented: “We built this platform with UKRI’s support to address one of the biggest challenges in real estate — the gap between the UK’s net-zero goals and what’s feasible for property owners and investors. Our solution accelerates the implementation of viable retrofits at scale. By leveraging AI, we empower property owners and occupiers to make smarter, faster, and more financially impactful decisions.”
Behind UpGreen platform: identifying profitable retrofit opportunities in property portfolios
UpGreen stands out in retrofitting with a scalable, tech-enabled approach integrating data, analysis, financing, and implementation. Its end-to-end automation streamlines processes, reducing costs and inefficiencies, while its AI-powered tools enhance accuracy and implementation rates.
Balachander elaborated: “We’ve simplified and automated the fragmented processes of reporting, procurement, and installation, eliminating additional costs and delays. Our machine learning algorithms, developed in collaboration with Siemens Real Estate and Innovate UK, rectify data errors, fill in energy, and build data gaps. Already, they’ve achieved 20% improvements in accuracy for cost estimates and 6% in savings predictions.”
UpGreen offers a commercially viable investment pathway, ensuring EPC improvements translate into financial returns. Balachander added: “Unlike other solutions, we quantify the financial and energy impact of ESG interventions, making sustainability a profitable and strategic choice for property owners. Our approach helps clients reach target EPC ratings while unlocking long-term property value. We also facilitate MEES compliance and regulatory alignment, enabling commercial real estate portfolios to meet ESG goals efficiently.”
The platform, set to launch in June, represents a breakthrough in how property owners and occupiers navigate energy waste through retrofits. It will drive cost savings, predictive valuation accuracy, compliance, and maximising return on investment at scale. The new platform will grow portfolio value for asset owners while improving the retrofit implementation process threefold.
Driving energy efficiency at an industry-wide level
Over the next 3-5 years, UpGreen aims to scale adoption across commercial real estate portfolios to enhance energy efficiency at an industry-wide level, achieving measurable carbon reductions by improving the EPC ratings and energy efficiency of thousands of properties.
The company also plans to expand into new markets, focusing on the UK and Europe, amplifying our impact across real estate investment firms and large commercial landlords. We aim to become the preferred retrofit financing solution, establishing it as the standard for property owners looking to decarbonise profitably.
Balachander concluded: “By 2028, we’ll reach £300K MRR, retrofit 40,000 buildings, and finance 7,500 retrofits via banking partners. We hope to unlock £1.3T in retrofit investments globally and mitigate 200K metric tonnes of CO2 in our first 4 years.”
