The Hindu Business Line : Go for a ‘green building’

All the bad news on global warming has sensitised professionals to the need for conservation. So the question is, how do we reduce the use of natural resources in commercial frameworks? The green building certification process that has gained currency in the last year enables a builder to guide his projects through a spectrum of simple, cost-effective and available technologies for water, energy and waste management to secure greater efficiency, says Mr Chandrashekar Hariharan, CEO, Biodiversity Conservation (India) Ltd (BCIL). “This means an occupier of such a ‘green building’ gains nearly 30 per cent on energy bills, saves on campus maintenance cost with water-efficient land management, with long-term security on water availability,” he adds.

Excerpts from the interview:

What are the opportunities that lie in green space development — globally and in India — today?

The opportunity is nearly unlimited across the urban world. Only 4 per cent of buildings in India are actually designed by architects, the rest are built with simple plans from civil engineers. Fifty per cent of all energy generated in the world is consumed in the creation of buildings and for all the materials that go to make buildings.

India alone is creating — in just the next 12 years — twice as much building infrastructure as it created in the last 50 years. Roads are another area that need to go green, with technologies that use recycled plastic, brick and stone debris from old buildings, and other such waste.

The market opportunity is vast because of the financial savings that such green buildings will bring to the customer, builder and other financial stakeholders.

How open are real-estate developers to adopting green building techniques and sustainable practices, especially in the day of increased construction costs? Is their awareness good enough? Are more companies coming under the fold?

If the recent annual congress of the India Green Business Council is any indicator, there is a sharp surge in such interest from builders, architects, service consultants and the entire spectrum of professionals and traders that make the building industry.

Green buildings in the urban context don’t cost any more than any other building, and offer the resident or the user of the building savings over a life time in terms of reduced energy bills, reduced water use, treatment of waste water and all wet waste in a way that you have clean, healthy, hygienic treated water for gardening and for your flush tanks, while the wet waste turns to compost for your gardens without any odour and other inconvenience.

Can you see the larger impact it makes on the city if every builder project and company decided to treat all waste water used in one’s own building and campus?

The burden on the city infrastructure for such waste management will fall sharply. The demand for fresh water on the city is reduced.

Are occupiers of commercial spaces driving the demand for green buildings? If so, could you quantify this?

What the occupiers are actually asking for is not green buildings for the sake of green buildings. What the occupiers are seeking is the saving in running costs of buildings — reduced energy and water bills, greater security on water since there will be less dependence on fresh water that comes from the municipal grid or from deep bore-wells, and less risks on waste that piles up in their office spaces and is not cleared.

What they are asking for is lesser dependence on State infrastructure for such waste clearance. What they are also asking for is the savings that come out of more efficient energy management in their air-conditioning.

If you are talking of commercial spaces, you must realise that nearly 60 per cent of energy bills of a regular commercial building comes only on account of ACs.

The upside of such green building initiative in our current urban context of power shutdowns, huge power outages, and the growing gap between supply and demand is that our power corporations will find a fall in overall demand for power if all buildings in the city take to energy-efficient air-conditioning systems.

The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) has been talking of increasing the water tariff from the current Rs 6 per 1,000 litres (a kilolitre) to Rs 19 a kilolitre! This revision is inevitable if the BWSSB has to remain afloat.

Their current cost of supply water is as high as Rs 17 per kilolitre. The impact of green buildings in the urban context is phenomenal.

As a company engaged in building `green' homes, how has your experience been so far? What is the response from potential buyers at the enquiry stage? How would you rate the awareness levels of consumers?
BCIL has grown from one individual who borrowed Rs 1 lakh in 1994 to start the first such green building initiative, to an organisation that has now under way the creation of about 1.5 million sq.ft of such green buildings in the next two years. BCIL is also growing its consulting business, Green Idea Lab, to impact, additionally, about 10 million sq.ft of other projects in the industry. In the early years, for every one person who understood what we were offering, we had 200 people who laughed us out of their offices or homes. Today, there is far greater awareness, particularly in the last year. The awareness still seems only at the level of `good conscience' and being `eco-friendly'. There is apprehension on performance. There is a feeling that green buildings cost more, and they soon see it is not so. The savings on energy bills and greater security on water availability will be convincing to occupants over the next two-three years, when they will see the wisdom of their decision to go green.
Do consumers pay more for properties (per sq.ft price), and do they have to pay more towards their monthly `maintenance charges'?
It is not necessary that customers pay more for such properties. These are sets of competitive features that BCIL offers to its customers as part of the organisation's basic objective of mainstreaming such planet-sustainable features that are cost-efficient too. The big plus is that such buildings save about 30 per cent on energy bills at home, about one rupee per sq.ft on monthly campus maintenance cost as against the regular `non-green' apartment block, and offer you sharply reduced dependence on fresh water, thanks to full treatment and reuse of treated waste water for gardens, flush tanks and other such purposes. The saving in a three-bedroom property in any such green building will be as high as Rs 6 lakh in the first six years, at the minimum.

Feedback to blproperty@thehindu.co.in

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