India has crossed the magical 7 billion sqft of green building footprint and is now aiming at going past the 10 billion sqft (100 crore sqft) by the year 2022, when India would be celebrating its 75th year of Independence. In achieving this landmark of 10 billion sqft, it will potentially displace US and China to take pole position.

V Suresh, Chairman of Indian Green Building Council, told Business Line “with more than 5400 green building projects, amounting to 7 billion sqft of space in about 18 years, we are all set to top with a huge green building cover by 2022.”

The transition to a greener and energy efficient buildings has come trough with 25 IGBC Green Rating Systems covering buildings, both residential and commercial and number of other housing projects including affordable homes. IGBC has thus far rated more than 800 Green Pro products, covering more than 70 per cent of buildings and it expects to cross 1000 product mark within couple of years.

The spread of green footprint of 7 billion sqft covers 1.4 million green homes covering 1.9 billion sqft, over 250 Green factories, 1,800 green offices, 48 green townships, 12 green cities, 24 green villages. In going green, these have contributed to energy savings of 15,000 MW of energy per million sqft per annum, reduced Co2 emissions by 12,000 tonnes per million sqft per annum, brought about water savings of 45,0000 kilo litres of water per million sqft and diverted 400 tins of construction waste from landfill every year.

As more and more buildings go green, the efforts of IGBC have demonstrated that 30-40 per cent of energy cost and 20-30 per cent on water could be saved. And all the products that have been certified as Greenpro, they have been indigenised and designed to address national priorities.

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