The goal: To offer zero-cost upgrades to commercial buildings by reducing energy consumption

Sunnyvale, CA - December 2, 2011 - Serious Energy Inc., a leader in energy efficiency solutions that increase the value of buildings, is proud to announce that it is a founding Financial Ally of the Better Buildings Challenge, an initiative to make America’s buildings 20 percent more efficient over the next decade, reducing energy costs for American businesses by nearly $40 billion. Serious Energy offers building upgrades without any up-front cost, with guaranteed reductions in the energy bill ranging from 10-30%.

President Obama announced the challenge today at the White House, which will involve $4 billion in investments in upgrades to federal and private sector buildings over the next two years.

Just give us your utility bill, says CEO Kevin Surace.

Sunnyvale, CA—November 3, 2011 — Serious Energy Inc., a leader in energy efficiency solutions that increase the value of buildings, today formally launched SeriousCapital, a service that cuts energy and maintenance costs and creates more comfortable and efficient properties for building owners and tenants – at zero upfront cost.

Energy efficiency, as you've no doubt heard, is the low-hanging fruit when it comes to operating expenses. Commercial buildings consume 18 percent of the energy in the U.S., according to the DOE, and roughly 30 percent of it gets wasted or consumed inefficiently, according to the EPA.

If a building owner has a $1 million energy bill and cuts it by 10 percent with no upfront costs, something you can do with building analytics tools like SeriousEnergy Manager and SeriousCapital, there's $100,000 in savings right there.

Hear Claire Broido Johnson at Groom Energy Enterprise Smart Grid Conference, November 2nd in Boston.

It seems strange that stores like Home Depot, Target and Lowe's try to attract homeowners with products that will reduce their bills and energy costs. Yet they are some of the draftiest, inefficient buildings around.

The Empire State Building was awarded LEED Gold Certification last week. SeriousGlass technology was used in the retrofitting of the building’s 6,514 dual pane windows. As reported by the Environmental Leader, the no-disruption retrofit glass system  iWindow is the same technology adapted and priced for wide-spread commercial use. (Check this space soon for another NYC historical landmark announcing a SeriousGlass window retrofit.)

This is a great like-minded article (“Cut costs and create jobs by retrofitting schools,” by Boonsri Dickinson), similar to our recent blog post on making schools more energy efficient. Dickinson interviews David Myers, president of Building Efficiency at Johnson Controls, and asks some important questions about the value of retrofitting existing buildings to make them more energy efficient.

Super-insulating SeriousWindows can help reduce energy bills in two ways. They can reduce heating and cooling loads by reducing the amount of heat that is conducted through the window, as well as the amount of heat that is leaked around the window (known as “infiltration").

Over at Green Building Pro there’s an excellent article about the importance of green retrofits for historic buildings (“Greening a Historic School” by Jim Lindberg). In it, Lindberg raises some insightful questions about the penchant for valuing new, environmentally friendly design over re-valuing and retrofitting older buildings.

BOMA Magazine’s recent “Green Guide” issue (May / June 2011) places sustainable commercial buildings at the center of business management – exactly where they should be. As the article’s author, Stephanie Oppenheimer, states, “The surveys are in, and the evidence is growing.” Sustainability isn’t just a quaint add-on, an afterthought, or the icing on the cake. It has moved from a nice-to-have branding initiative to a need-to-have, bottom-line driver.

At Serious, we often cite that windows are the ‘weakest link’ in a building’s thermal envelope.  An interesting statistic in this regard was offered recently by McGraw-Hill Construction Continuing Education author, Katharine Logan.  In her article “The Rise of Retrofit,” she writes:

There are few better places to get a bead on the role real estate is playing in overall corporate strategy than at CoreNet Global’s regular gatherings. The concept of commercial workspace value has evolved well beyond the dollars and cents of square footage. Corporate real estate professionals at the CoreNet Spring Summit in Chicago last week were striving to quantify how value might rise with the higher productivity and improved health of people.

On April 2, TEDxPresidio brought together thought leaders in business who are -- as their mission-statement makes clear -- "shaping the future of their sectors."

Covering evolving 21st Century business trends like competition in a global marketplace, entrepreneurship, technological tools, survival in the digital age, and the changing set of internal and external values, it was only natural that sustainability was a hot topic.

It was therefore equally natural that our own inimitable CEO, Kevin Surace, made an appearance -- even if Kevin saved energy by streaming his presentation from our Sunnyvale HQ.

iWindow offers high energy-saving and comfort performance without replacing existing glass, virtually eliminating occupant disruption, and enabling rapid retrofit

Onsite processing will transform existing dual-pane windows into super-insulating windows.

Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI), the global industrial leader in providing energy efficient and sustainable products, services and solutions, has selected Serious Energy, nee Serious Materials, to super-insulate more than 6,500 windows for the Empire State Building’s energy efficiency retrofit project.

In a city dear to our hearts, reported yesterday, the country's tallest building is planning a $350 million retrofit in the name of energy efficiency.