MNRE entrusts ADARSH to formulate comprehensive Green guidelines

By AT Bureau
New Delhi 20th September 2011: At present India is undergoing a massive development in all spheres; particularly in the real estate sector, thereby the energy and resource demand is increasing rapidly. This is also due to rapid urbanization and lifestyle changes of the people. Further an increasing number of large developments are coming up in the country comprising of large townships, educational and institutional campuses, medical colleges and hospitals and special economic zones. Most such projects don’t have adequate guidelines for sustainable design, planning and development and the current set of codes and standards, although comprehensive in their nature are looked upon as mutually exclusive. To address and counter this situation, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy entrusted ADARSH (Association for Development and Research of Sustainable Habitats) an independent registered society formed by TERI, for promotion and implementation of GRIHA rating system in the country to formulate a comprehensive set of inclusive and integrated guidelines to address large developments across the country. The objective is to access the trends in large campus developments in India, analyse our national and local requirements and formulate a set of guidelines and benchmarks to be followed by project proponents when developing large campuses.
These guidelines will be useful for developing a campus /townships as a “Green Campus/Townships”. Various incentives which are available under different schemes such as deployment of Solar Hot Water Systems, Roof Top PV System, Waste Recycling for Energy Generation, Solar Power Plants etc. may also be utilized in construction of these green buildings and green campuses.
With increasing urbanization and rapid rise in improving individual’s economic levels and consumption pattern in many parts of India, there is an increasing trend to consume more natural resources per capita. This is evident from the aspirational lifestyles and resulting in changing tastes and expenditure patterns of individuals and societies. This is equally witnessed from modern construction needs and changing sky lines of metros and tier 2 and even tier 3 cities. This is constantly putting up tremendous pressure on fragile ecosystem by over extraction of natural resources finally affecting bio diversity of our planet. Increasing demand supply gaps and depleting environmental conditions is increasing awareness on need for environment friendly constructions. To achieve this, it is predominantly important to have to accept major challenge in controlling and judiciously using natural resources to shrink ecological foot print. The way to achieve this is by holistically planning our growth needs, one of which is construction and combining them with need based economy, but at the same time without compromising on essential comforts, functionality and adaptability of buildings for acceptable levels of suitability.
The changing policy landscape in the country is aggressively trying to address these concerns in a holistic fashion. The National Mission on Sustainable Habitats intends to address this by harmonising Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) with building bye laws, mainstreaming efficient transportation modes and solid waste management programmes. The National Building Code of India is introducing a section on Sustainable Buildings and the Low Carbon Strategies for Inclusive growth spearheaded by the Planning Commission lays a road map for low carbon growth in the country
Buildings consume significant amount of energy in their construction, operation and maintenance. Globally, about 40% of energy consumption is estimated to be in the building sector. An estimated 42% of the global water consumption and 50% of the global consumption of raw materials is attributed to buildings when taking into account the manufacture of materials, construction, and operation of buildings through their life. In addition, building activities contribute an estimated 50% of the world’s air pollution, 42% of its greenhouse gases, 50% of all water pollution, 48% of all solid wastes and 50% of all CFCs to the environment. India too faces similar challenges in its fast growing construction sector.
The sector has now begun developing large-scale projects that offer multiple product options as a part of a single package. So, for instance, a housing project may offer lifestyle facilities such as on campus club-houses, gymnasia, swimming pools, convenience stores, etc. There are an increasing numbers of such large developments coming up in the country.
When a large project is planned and implemented it comprises multiple buildings and other infrastructural facilities, on a single site. Environmental Performance assessment for such projects can go beyond the environmental design of each building, and calls for assessment of larger environmental issues, and their effects that are brought out by the built environment.
Some of these macro parameters that apply to such developments at various scales are
Environmental Planning,
1. Planning,
2. Landscape Architecture,
• Ecology,
• Environmental design & Urban Agriculture,
• Agronomy,
3. Socioeconomics,
4. Water resources,
• Hydrogeology &
• Watershed development,
• Water including recycling and recharging,
5. Mobility systems,
6. Urban Design,
• Architecture,
• Structures and construction systems,
7. Risk Mitigation & Climate change,
8. Sustainability & Long-range planning,
9. Project & Construction Management
10. Energy and energy systems
• HVAC including co-generation and tri-generation,
• Renewable and passive energy,
• Power systems including smart grids

Thus, depending on the large development typology as explained above, the applicability of guidelines shall vary. In the wake of addressing the issue of climate change, reducing the dependence on fossil fuels by increasing the share of renewable energy and energy efficiency measures the development of green campuses is imperative today.
The MNRE is also promoting Green Building and GRIHA Rating System, developed by TERI through some promotional incentives under which 117 projects have been registered with 4.98 million sq. m built up area. Moreover all Central Government Buildings are to be constructed as green buildings with GRIHA rating. The Ministry is providing financial support for capacity building, awareness, exemption in rating-cum-evaluation fees, promotional incentives for architects, engineers etc. under the scheme.