Peter Leonard Krebs

Location: Loughborough, United Kingdom

Joined: 29/07/2009

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About: Sefaira is founded by Peter Krebs and Mads Jensen who have been developing the Sefaira concept whilst earning their MBA degrees at INSEAD. Sefaira’s mission is to reduce the cost of green buildings to the level of conventional construction, thus encouraging sustainable global development and significantly improving the environment.
Peter and Mads have over 15 years combined experience in the computer software and services space. They are also experienced entrepreneurs. In addition, Peter was the green engineer on The Solaire - America's first environmentally responsible high rise apartment, which earned the LEED Gold certification by the US Green Building Council standards for environmentally friendly buildings.

In 2008, Sefaira won the INSEAD CleanTech competition, and in 2009, the INSEAD Business Venture Competition

Sefaira - Building a Green Future

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The Pitch:

Sefaira – Building a Green Future

After years of talking, we know we must consume less energy, emit less pollutants and preserve our natural resources.

But did you know half our emissions come from buildings, not just cars -- buildings like our homes, schools, hospitals. Now, it’s time for action.

Today, green buildings are gaining in popularity. They consume less materials and require less energy and water.

Even so, only 6% of new buildings are made using green principles, due to cost, complexity and access.

Introducing Sefaira.

We believe that designing and building green should be easy, accessible, and cost efficient.

Sefaira will supply the software tools that make this vision a reality, by working with leading universities and experienced green architects and engineers, to develop a new class of online design tools.

Accessible to both small and large architects and contractors.
Applicable for commercial and residential construction.
Affordable, because sustainable buildings and good business should go hand in hand.

Join Sefaira today to build a greener future.

--
Today, buildings contribute 50% of CO2 emissions annually around the world, and use up more than 70% of our electricity to light and heat. Moreover, a billion tons of construction and demolition waste are generated annually. Yet, alternatives exist: green buildings consume 15% less materials, use 30% less energy, and require 40% less water than conventional buildings.

Sefaira believes that building green is crucial to improving the global environment.

While green buildings have come a long way in the last 10 years, significant barriers exist to further adoption of green building techniques – including technical, legal, administrative and financial barriers. The green building design tools that exist today are costly and complex to use, putting them out of the reach of mainstream architects, engineers and contractors who build 85% of our buildings annually.

Sefaira and its collaborators - experienced green construction practitioners and leading academics from the UK and US – identify the most effective green construction techniques and develop software tools which help reduce the complexity and cost of building green. These tools are delivered online to make them accessible to the widest audience of architects, engineers, and contractors.

Together with Sefaira software, the mainstream architects and contractors who construct 85% of our built environment will be able to build green more often, in turn making a significant reduction in global CO2 emissions and reducing the impact of buildings on the environment.

Sefaira – Building a Greener Future

Comments:

Jennifer Sterling says: Great idea! Like the potential for large impacts. Good luck!

Jonathan Adams says: Great idea! Here in the US, green buildings are taking off but smaller builders like me could really use some software to automate the slew of manual labor we do. If I can be of any help as a collaborator, please do let me know. I might be able to get some local contractor associations involved.

Franziska Schneider says: Hi, how much can your software save in terms of CO2 and energy used in construction? Also, how does the cost of a 'green' building compare to conventional? You say you can use 15% less material, but what kind of material is that and how does all this compare in overall cost? Furthermore, how does a green building per your spec compare in the long-term, does it last longer as well? And what about maintenance costs? And end of life scenario and costs?

Thank you.

Sandra Schwarzer says: Fantastic idea and well executed! I think this is the future!

Peter Leonard Krebs says: Thanks everyone for your support! Excellent Jonathan - good news. I have done a green project in New York City myself, and it would be great to talk more. Please send us an email on green@sefaira.com and let's talk about how we can work together.

Peter Leonard Krebs says: Franziska - thanks for your comment - those are great questions!

Sefaira software helps architects, engineers, and contractors adhere to leading green building standards such as BREEAM (UK), LEED (US) and others. One of the issues we tackle is that it can be very costly and complex to follow green standards today, standards which changing quite regularly. The cost to properly design, optimize, research and certify a single green project can cost several hundred thousand pounds -- which covers additional planning, paperwork, materials research and coordination between 3rd parties. Sefaira software helps reduce these costs. Our mission is to bring down the cost of building a green building to the same level as that of a conventionally designed building.

As for CO2 and energy savings, with proper analysis, up to 30% energy savings can be achieved just by carefully designing a building's envelope (it's skin). Another big source of CO2 reduction on a green building can come from sourcing locally produced, recycled building materials. Many building materials are heavy (brick, lumber, boilers, chillers, drywall, tile, concrete), and consume a large amount of fuel to both make and transport. Sefaira makes it easier for contractors to select locally made building materials which contain recycled content, and thus have lower embodied CO2.

As for longevity and maintenance, green building standards today, such as LEED (US) or the Code for Sustainable Homes (UK) - are more stringent and demand higher quality than conventional buildings. It follows then that the longevity of such green buildings is longer - 40, 50 year designs are not uncommon. Regarding maintenance costs, building green can save 30% or more on operating expenses alone, due to reduced energy and water consumption, not to mention the labor savings associated with reduced boiler maintenance and less replacement of light bulbs throughout a green building.

Thanks for your questions!

Soren Kristensen says: Nice job Sefaira! This is REAL progress - the construction industry is so huge and I admire your vision -- this software could add a lot of much needed transparency to the construction process. Two questions: what kind of automations has your collaboration group identified to be useful to builders? how will you keep up with the many green standards out there across the world?

SK

clarissa ables says: Amazing. I love the video! The clearest one I've seen this whole competition. Who did your animation and sound?

I work for a small architect here in Massachusetts and my boss and I are starting to get involved in green buildings. When would your software be available? When you say online software, what do you mean? Is it all on the web?
clarissa

Hugo Angelmar says: Sefaira's a great idea in a market that really needs a greater availability of information regarding green building. I think what I like best about the pitch is that it's much more actionable than the other pitches out there. There's no question that if Sefaira didn't provide that service, someone else would. Good luck beating the competition:

Jennifer Gill says: A great idea at the hands of two highly skilled entrepreneurs! I will be following your progress!

Ron Downey says: Peter

Like this, good luck with the competition

rob doyle says: Well thought out problem description and call to action. Getting experts to collaborate on the best possible solution(s) for green buildings can really help adoption! I like that you guys are experienced entrepreneurs and still did INSEAD - what a powerhouse school - rob from Cali

Ito Katanaka says: I like your idea very much. Green buildings are gaining much ground in my home of Japan. Buildings really do make such an impact on environment that if you can help make easier for people to builds green I feel you can have truly globall impact. Good lucks! We japanese are supporting you!

Ito Katanaka says: Sefaira - have you looked into supporting Japanese LEED? I am sure if you are helpings with BREEAM certifications and LEED, then Japanese will follow? If so, you can makes very globall software. I sent your link to some architects friends for their review.

Lorne Unrolle says: Finally - an idea which can REALLY make a difference. Good thinking, guys!! There are a whole bunch of green buildings here in the vicinity of Puget Sound. One of my neighbors works in one and says the difference for indoor air quality is huge. You guys should talk to our local USGBC office to see if they want to participate in your pilot. Do it!!

Niranjan Soni says: An amazing idea and brilliantly presented by two highly skilled and motivated entrepreneurs. I think this idea can really make a big difference. Best of luck with the competition.

Mads Jensen says: @ everyone who’ve seen our video / voted / made comments etc.. Hey guys – thanks for the amazing support and great comments / questions so far. The interface on this site does not give us opportunity to contact you personally, so if you would like to get in touch / discuss more please send a note to green@sefaira.com with your suggestions and we can continue the dialogue via email. We will post a few replies of more general interest below.

Mads Jensen says: @ Soren Kristensen: Thanks for your support! to your questions. a) without giving too much away at this stage we’ve identified good opportunities for automation in the support of collaboration workflow + in submittal support. There are other areas as well – see Peter’s answer to Franziska. b) we will initially support the international standards plus a few of the major local standards. In addition our software will be flexibly designed so as to be able to encompass relevant new standards as they emerge.

Mads Jensen says: @ Clarissa Ables: Thanks for your support Clrissa! The video was done by our inhouse team – we are still on a start-up budget. We are still building our network of collaborators and early testers, so if you are interested in seeing the software in action please get in touch on green@sefaira.com and we can provide you with more information. The basic design principle of the software is that it will be web-delivered to allow for easy access.

Mads Jensen says: @ Ito: Thanks for your support! Our launch strategy is initially focused on the US and the EU, but we are also interested in talking to Japanese partners. Do you have someone in mind we should be working with?

Mads Jensen says: @ Lorne: Thanks for your support and suggestions! We agree – green buildings are important and can make a big difference. Hopefully we can do our part to help the area develop faster. As for the USGBC – we are connected and we see them as an absolutely key player in the development of the green building industry, and working together on a pilot is definitely in the cards. Thanks again!

Danielle Geara says: Someone had to think about this, and you guys did, bravo! Great idea, with huge potential.
Making green building simple and affordable will finally make of it a reasonable alternative to conventional building.

Best of luck for the competition!

Tanuj Pandey says: Great idea, Peter and Mads. Good luck with the competition.

Loy Veal says: Good idea because others had it before. Can't see how it is original.

Mads Jensen says: @Loy Veal. Thanks for your comments. You are absolutely right that Green Construction is an existing concept and not one that in itself has been developed by Sefaira. However, even though Green Construction promises to transform the way we live, it still only has a limited penetration across new developments (not to speak of refurbishment of existing buildings). Sefaira will address this issue in several new ways – for example: a) many people with different expertise need to work together to successfully design a new building. Whilst the majority of today’s software packages are designed to serve functional silos (e.g. engineers performing a specific function), Sefaira works across functions to ease collaboration between e.g. architects and engineers, and therefore improve the efficiency of the design and planning work. b) Sefaira also works with smaller practices, to help the 85% of design firms who do not have the resource to purchase and implement the large and costly applications that dominate the industry.
We’d love to hear more about your thoughts on the development of the Green Construction industry, and welcome you to reach out to us via green@sefaira.com. Thanks again.

Michelle Erel says: Good idea, good people, we have a winning team!

fritz mueller says: Wow, this idea nees international implementation NOW.
Good luck!

Philippe Renaud says: Great idea with huge potential. Good luck!

Andreas Diener says: Amazing idea and a showcase example for combining green with business. Keep me posted!

Cheers, Andreas

Michael Schelper says: Definitely an amazing and demanded business idea that is tackling the existing problems in the green construction industry. Building green will be the only possibility for this industry in a couple of years and providing the required information in an easy accessible manner is key to enable big corporations and small businesses to sustain in the industry. Also the team has an extensive experience in all required key areas, entrepreneurship, information technology, and green construction. Best of luck guys.

Cheers,
Mic

Toon Oetje says: brilliant idea. two questions: first, do you need more academic contacts in england? second, I am curious: does the name sefaira mean anything? its a cool name.

Toon Oetje says: oh one more question: which is the bigger problem today - collaboration tools or design tools? just curious if one is a bigger issue for architects or contractors

Mads Jensen says: @ Toon Oetje. Thanks for your comments, questions and support. Much appreciated. To your questions and starting from the end: we see a big part of the problem as collaboration within the design tools. One thing is to help practitioners with workflow automation in situations where there is a neat division of labour, but a problem which is especially acute in green buildings is that design considerations require input from many sources, and that the tools available today often look at the problem from a silo rather than a logical workflow which connects the different disciplines and specialisations. As for our name – Sefaira is derived from the greek word for sphere – sphaira. We've chosen this name because our mission is global in nature, and because we take a holistic approach to solving the problems faced by our customers. And we are glad that you like it – thanks! Lastly – we are still building our network of academic collaborators. If you have ideas please reach out on green@sefaira.com . Thanks again, and best regards, Mads

Christoph Henseleit says: Peter and Mads:
Excellent pitch! Particularly in the (conservative) construction industry there is substantial potential for greener business models. Your proposal makes good sense - economically & ecologically!

Good luck!

Best
C

Eloy Sasot says: What should be added? It is quite obvious that this is a great idea and standing on very good moral grounds (protecting our planet). Besides, Mads and Peter look really capable to go ahead with the project.

All the best of luck! Mucha suerte!

Eloy

Jitin Goyal says: Dear Peter

I really like your idea. Top marks! I think there could be interesting possibilities for Sefaira and Elpis to collaborate. Let's discuss.

Warm Regards// Jitin

Bremley W.B. Lyngdoh says: Well done Peter - green buildings are best way to reduce our carbon footprints. How about scaling this up in China and India in the urban areas? These two giant economies need green design for their future green cities.

Cheers,

Bremley