The Hindu Business Line : Get set for green cities

After green homes, commercial establishments, corporate houses and lately factories, it won’t be long before we have norms for green cities, which will include special economic zones (SEZs) and even schools.

The Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), a part of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), is at advanced stage of charting out norms for green cities and schools, according to Dr Prem C. Jain, Chairman, IGBC.

Talking to Business Line during his visit to Hyderabad, Dr Jain, a passionate advocate of green movement in the country with a mission to bring about change, said “it was time we initiated proactive steps to save the ecosystem rather than being mute spectators to it. In this journey to bring about change, many activities need to be voluntary and taken up on mission mode and some enforced to ensure early compliance.”

Voluntary compliance

The IGBC began with simple steps of unveiling norms for green buildings, and many corporate entities and individual house owners are taking to this voluntarily and display with pride that their buildings comply with these norms. “Now we have come up with a green factory code and within six months we will have similar guidelines for green cities and green schools,” he said.

Many stakeholders have been involved, including Central/State Governments and local corporations, in preparing the norms for green cities. Cities such as Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Hyderabad, which have great heritage structures, provide good insights on how architects of the past designed them to ensure that they were environment friendly, saving on energy and natural resources, he explained.

The rating for green cities is aimed at addressing national priorities such as site and natural resource conservation, energy and water efficiency, and improving quality of life with better ventilation that harnesses the power of natural resources.

As a part of the effort to bring in norms for green cities, IGBC would initially cover special economic zones (SEZs). As these are relatively newly designed buildings, they would be able to ensure that they quickly adhere to these norms, he said.

Energy saver

Initially, these norms would be voluntary and later the IGBC expects the Government to back these with an enactment which would make it mandatory for developers to follow.

What is interesting is that in the case of IT companies, they have taken this up voluntarily as they find that savings could be up to 30 per cent in energy alone, he explained.

As per estimates, about 40 per cent of energy is consumed by buildings, hospitals, hotels and large business establishments. And as these are made more efficient, we will be able to bring about great savings, he said.

In the case of green homes, IGBC managed to bring about significant changes in the way new buildings are made, including those which large developers are adopting. Since its launch in May 2008, already 80 million sq.ft of buildings is now classified as conforming to green building norms. This is a validation that increase in awareness ensures its compliance.

Lower costs

The benefits have been quantified. The cost of building green homes, which was about 18 per cent higher than conventional homes, has come down to about 14 per cent. However, in the case of large buildings that could come up in SEZs, it is likely that the cost would be higher by just about 3 per cent.

However, the advantages these structures bring far outweighs the marginal higher cost, he said.

In the case of corporates, IGBC started with initial membership of about 70. This number has gone up to 580. This is small compared to the country’s size.

“But look at the case of, say, a company like Wipro. Since it has enrolled with us, we have nearly one lakh employees also conforming to these norms. They in turn serve as ambassadors,” he felt.

Referring to the norms proposed for schools, Dr Jain said children are best ambassadors for building a culture to save the environment.

Apart from learning, they will help in others getting to know the importance of green structures. Any investment in them will have long-term impact.

“We expect to come up with a detailed guideline for green schools too by the end of the year,” he said.