Green Buildings

Green Building is a sustainable building with high efficiency in resource usage (energy, water, and materials) while reducing impacts on health and environment during its lifecycle through good building practices.

A Green building is designed, constructed, and operated to minimize the total environmental impacts while enhancing user comfort, and productivity”.  Green buildings preserve precious natural resources and improve our quality of life.

A green building is one which uses less water, optimizes energy efficiency, conserves natural resources, generates less waste and provides healthier spaces for occupants, as compared to a conventional building. 

There are a number of features that can make a building ‘green’. These include:

✓ Efficient use of energy, water, and other resources.

✓ Use of renewable energy, such as solar energy.

✓ Pollution and waste reduction measures, and the enabling of re-use and recycling.

✓ Good indoor environmental air quality.

✓ Use of materials that are non-toxic, ethical, and sustainable.

✓ Consideration of the environment in design, construction, and operation

✓ Consideration of the quality of life of occupants in design, construction, and operation.

✓ A design that enables adaptation to a changing environment.

Urban Planning, Green Cover and Biodiversity

Urban areas in India are expected to house more than 40% of the country’s total population, and will contribute to over 75% of the national GDP by 2030 (Source: MoHUA, SCM). However, as the cities expand, the energy demand is expected to increase dramatcally, resulting in high GHG emissions and thereby contributing to the climate change. Since much of India’s future development is centred around cities and urban areas, consistent with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, cities urgently need to plan and implement climate actions in an integrated and inclusive way. This would include mitigation of GHG emissions and adaptation to climate change impacts to foster comprehensive social, cultural, economic, and environmental benefits.

The cost of poor planning of Indian cities is estimated between 1.2% and 6.3% of the GDP by 2050 (Mani, Bandyopadhyay, Chonabayashi, Markandya & Mosier, 2018). Therefore, there is an urgent need for urban planning reforms that can facilitate integrated urban and regional planning approaches to climate-sensitive development, with active public participation in a time bound manner. At the same time, adoption and enforcement of existing mechanisms and guidelines, such as the revised URDPFI guidelines 2014 on preservation and rejuvenation of water bodies, green and eco-sensitive areas, need to be strengthened by the Urban Development Authorities (UDAs) and Urban Local Bodies (ULBs).

As of July 2019, out of the 7,933 cities and towns, 2,843 have statutory Master Plans. The disaggregation of Master Plans in the form of Zonal Development Plans/ Local Area Plans /Layout Plans are rarely available for most cities and towns, leading to haphazard and unplanned growth. Moreover, a review of existing plans suggests that many towns and cities that have Master Plans or Development Plans, which do not match with the growing infrastructural requirements and emerging challenges arising out of climate change, environmental and infrastructure requirements. Besides, lack of data to enable risk-informed planning, fund scarcity, and lack of qualified human resources (urban/town planners) pose serious challenges in formulation, implementation, and monitoring of climate actions at the city level. Spatial and temporal data loss and damage due to disasters remain a gap. In addition, timely implementation and monitoring of various spatial plans and provision for revision, need to be enabled with the use of the latest technological tools, such as Geographical Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing techniques. 

Urban environment consists of many aspects, including waterbodies, open spaces, and built-up areas. The waterbodies and open spaces help people adapt better to the adverse impacts of extreme climate events besides combating the urban heat island effect. These also combat water crisis, acting as reservoirs for draining, retention for groundwater recharge, for protection in case of floods, and for maintaining biodiversity. Further, local sources of freshwater decrease the dependence on energy for pumping purposes.

Similarly, sufficiently large and protected green spaces reduce the impact of human activities on climate, while biodiversity helps in carbon sequestration, air and water purification, mitigation of impacts of environmental pollution, noise reduction, and microclimate regulation. The effects of climate change and disasters (natural and man-made) are faced by urban inhabitants, and impact urban infrastructure. As effects of climate variability leading to extreme events are becoming more severe and frequent, the incidents of damage to urban infrastructure are also increasing. Therefore, all cities should be able to identify their potential hazards, vulnerabilities, and risk as well as be prepared for a prompt response mechanism to combat any disaster situations, including robust plans for recovery, reconstruction, and rehabilitation to ‘build back better’.

Energy and Green Buildings

Housing and buildings (residential and non-residential) are essential sectors of a country’s economy and known as growth escalators, which directly impact the quality of life. The construction sector of India, including housing accounts for 8% of GDP and employs 12% of the total workforce. Buildings consume 1/3rd of the global energy output and produce around 20% of the total GHG emissions.

In the wake of increasing frequency of extreme events, such as floods, heatwaves, coastal flooding, storm surges, etc., it is critical to mainstream and implement retrofitting of climate adaptation measures in the building sector. While there are various guidelines and regulations in this sector to promote sustainability and address climate change impacts, there is a need for structured mainstreaming of various approaches and mechanisms in the existing city-level frameworks with appropriate implementation, monitoring, and verification protocols. Further, the challenges prevailing in the sector include knowledge gaps at various levels, issues related to enforcement and implementation, high upfront cost of green technology, and limited technological development.

With 50% of the building stock that is expected to be constructed by the year 2030 yet to be built, electricity consumption in residential and commercial buildings is bound to increase. Further, 80% of GHGs in India are generated from the present energy demand in fossil fuels, such as coal, natural gas, and oil. The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), a statutory body under the Ministry of Power, Government of India, estimates that electricity consumption in the commercial building sector alone in India is expanding at a rate of over 9% per year. Similarly, as per the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog), Government of India, the electricity consumption in the residential sector is expected to increase 6-13 times by 2047. Therefore, India’s real estate sector will play a crucial role in addressing the climate-related challenges, especially in reducing energy demand and other resource requirements in terms of electricity consumption for heating and cooling, land and material requirement, and other infrastructural demands. Energy production must shift to cleaner, renewable energy sources (such as, solar photovoltaics (PV), solar thermal, wind energy, hybrid-hydel power, small hydro, geothermal energy, tidal energy, biogas, waste-to-energy, etc.).

There are several programmes designed by MoHUA, Ministry of Power (MoP), Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) through the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) and its State Nodal Agencies, Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) and others, to develop energy efficiency in cities and shift to renewable energy sources. For example, MNRE has a Solar Cities program that is designed to support cities to prepare a roadmap to transform to ‘renewable energy cities’ or ‘solar cities’. Similarly, BEE has a Municipal Demand Side Management (MuDSM) program for reducing electricity consumption in municipal services, promoting energy-efficient appliances, and a Green Building Star Rating program that the cities can take advantage of to achieve energy and cost savings in providing various municipal services. EESL has Municipal Energy Efficiency Programme (MEEP), Street Lighting National Programme (SLNP), and Unnat Jeevan by Affordable LEDs and Appliances for All (UJALA), that the ULBs can implement for promoting energy-efficient technologies in their cities. Under AMRUT, over 6.2 million streetlights were replaced with energy-efficient LED street-lighting. SNLP has been instrumental in replacing over 5 million street lights in over 500 cities in India, leading to 1.35 billion kWh of energy savings and cost saving of INR 7.42 billion every year. The cities can also take advantage of the solar street-lighting program through Atal Jyoti Yojana (AJAY) - an initiative of MNRE.

It is important to note that, even though the upfront costs for green building technologies are high, over long term, the life cycle cost, including O&M, is considerably lower. It is evident from research that the life cycle cost of green buildings is 24-28% less compared to conventional buildings. 

Similarly, the building sector has implemented policies and codes, which elaborate on energy efficiency in residential and commercial building sector - Model Building Bye Laws (MBBL), 2016, National Building Code (NBC), 2016; the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC); the Eco- Niwas Samhita, 2018, and the schemes deployed by BEE. During the last decade, these policies and guidelines have been revised to address and incorporate the emerging needs of the sector. MBBL 2016 has provided guidelines for sustainable buildings to reduce energy and water consumption to 50% of the present consumption in conventional buildings. NBC developed by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) was updated in 2016 to include a chapter on ‘Approach to Sustainability’. ECBC 2007 document developed for commercial buildings was revised in 2017 to address the energy performance of the buildings at three levels. In 2018, ECBC for residential buildings “Eco Niwas Samhita 2018” was also launched. However, the ECBC document applies only for new construction and does not apply to existing buildings and renovation projects. For existing buildings, BEE has launched a scheme ‘Star Rating of commercial buildings’ with the objective of building a foundation for enhancing energy efficiency in buildings. Besides, the Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA) stipulates green building guidelines for both new and existing buildings.

Green buildings

A green building depletes as little of the natural resources during its construction and operation. The aim of a green building design is to

1. Minimize the demand on non-renewable resources and maximize the utilization efficiency of these resources when in use
2. Maximize reuse and recycling of available resources
3. Utilization of renewable resources.

It maximizes the use of efficient building materials and construction practices; optimizes the use of on-site sources and sinks by bio-climatic architectural practices; uses minimum energy to power itself; uses efficient equipment to meet its lighting, air-conditioning, and other needs; maximizes the use of renewable sources of energy; uses efficient waste and water management practices; and provides comfortable and hygienic indoor working conditions.

The following aspects of the building design are looked into in an integrated way in a green building:

1. Site planning
2. Building envelope design
3. Building system design HVAC (heating ventilation and air conditioning), lighting, electrical, and water heating
4. Integration of renewable energy sources to generate energy onsite
5. Water and waste management
6. Selection of ecologically sustainable materials (with high recycled content, rapidly renewable resources with low emission potential, etc.)
7. Indoor environmental quality (maintains indoor thermal and visual comfort and air quality)

Benefits of Green Buildings:

Some of the tangible benefits of constructing green are as follows:

• 30–50% reduction in energy consumption
• Up to 40% reduction in freshwater demand
• 40–65% reduction in building water consumption
• 30–40% reduction in operational cost of buildings

Green rated buildings are a sure-fire step forward towards developing an energy secure future for the country, and planning their design, construction, and operation will result in the following:

• Prevent destruction of the local natural habitat and biodiversity
• Reuse of the construction waste material to the maximum possible extent
• Reduce the energy and water demands of the building
• Reduce air and water pollution loads on the community
• Limited waste generation due to recycling and reuse
• Increase occupant productivity
• Enhance marketability for the community as a whole

Also there are many benefits of green buildings and green development. The following are a few :

Environmental Benefits

• Enhance and protect biodiversity and ecosystems
• Improve air and water quality
• Reduce waste streams
• Conserve and restore natural resources

Economic Benefits

• Reduce operating costs
• Improve occupant productivity
• Enhance asset value and profits
• Optimize life-cycle economic performance

Social Benefits

• Enhance occupant health and comfort
• Improve indoor air quality
• Minimize strain on local utility infrastructure
• Improve overall quality of life

Process to Rate Green Buildings:

GRIHA, an acronym for Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment, is a rating tool that helps people assesses the performance of their building against certain nationally acceptable benchmarks. It evaluates the environmental performance of a building holistically over its entire life cycle, thereby providing a definitive standard for what constitutes a ‘green building’. The rating system, based on accepted energy and environmental principles, will seek to strike a balance between the established practices and emerging concepts, both national and international.This tool has been adopted by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. This tool, by its qualitative and quantitative assessment criteria, is able to ‘rate’ a building on the degree of its 'greenness'.