The newly-appointed National Vice Chairman of Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), C Shekar Reddy, beaming optimistism about the future of the green building movement in India told Bizz Buzz that with the concerted efforts of all stakeholders, along with focus on inclusivity and accessibility, the transition towards a more sustainable built environment can be accelerated. Currently, India holds second position globally for highest number of registered green building footprint. IGBC has certified 11.675 billion sft across 13,380 projects. With an ambition to secure the first position globally, the Council has set its sight on certifying 50 billion sft of green building footprint by 2047

IGBC is looking at achieving 50 billion sft of green building footprint, when India completes 100 years of Independence. According to you, what are the factors that will accelerate adoption of green building practices?

The Indian government has been actively promoting green building initiatives through policies, incentives, and regulations in 11 States. With continued government support, we can expect to see greater adoption across the country. Moreover, advances in technology such as, smart building systems, renewable energy integration, and building automation, will play a crucial role in making green buildings more efficient and sustainable. Lastly, collaboration among industry stakeholders, including developers, architects, engineers, manufacturers, and policymakers, will drive innovation in sustainable construction practices.

You have been at the helm of green building movement for more than two decades. Now, as the National VC, what is the robust framework that you will further build the movement on, across India?

Many countries have developed few ratings, only IGBC has come up with 32 ratings for certifying buildings. We also undertake timely upgradation of these ratings. Earlier, we did not have many green certified products, but now there are 8,300 IGBC certified GreenPro products available. We have also trained more than 7,000 people from across India to be consultants for IGBC rating, hence creating qualified manpower. We have 29 IGBC Chapters across the country. These above mentioned numbers, we will be taking it further. To create awareness, we conduct annually International Green Building Congress, Green your School, Competition among Architects, and Indian Green League for Corporates. Such awareness programmes will also be scaled up.

Talking about creating awareness, the IGBC Property Show is being held in that direction…

In the last many years, awareness about sustainable building construction practices was not taken up either by Centre, State or other organisations. Slowly it is picking up now, and today Government of India is talking about it, while IGBC worked on building strong fundamentals for these many years. Now, the task at hand is multiplication. For example, Credai has agreed to build 4,000 green certified projects by 2030 that will add on to the numbers. Till now, we have touched only the tip of the pyramid, now we have to reach out to the bottom of the pyramid. And, how are we going to achieve this…is through roping in developer bodies’ like Credai, and organising IGBC property shows to showcase green certified buildings.

After two editions of IGBC property show in Hyderabad, under your guidance, any plans of taking it to other cities?

Options like Pune, Bangalore, and Calcutta, have been shortlisted tentatively. Later, we will look at Chhattisgarh, Mumbai, Delhi, and so on. I will look at the number of certified properties in these cities before taking a call. It will take months together of planning to final on one city. These cities have been getting more incentives from the State government, so it will be easy to promote certified green buildings there.

IGBC launched Nest and Nest Plus recently. Could you elaborate on its purpose?

My belief has always been…use technology to make the certification process simple and cost effective. In this direction, IGBC developed an application for self certification of individual properties called as Nest and Nest Plus. The Nest framework is designed to address specific measures of EWS, LIG and MIG individual homes developed by owner with a maximum built-up area of 150 sq mt. These projects are accepted through financial institutions/ partners. The upgraded version of the app is IGBC’s Nest Plus framework, designed to address specific measures of EWS, LIG and MIG individual homes developed by owner with a maximum built-up area of 300 sq mt. Individual owners can apply for this rating directly. We will further scale up the platform to include properties up to 50,000 sft so that small developers in cities, and towns can get their building certified by themselves by paying a small fee.

Amidst cities dealing with rising temperatures, and water shortage, how would you uphold benefits of investing on certified green buildings?

For green building certification, IGBC considers certain parameters. One among those is related to water and energy saving. IGBC rates a building for having installed rain water harvesting pits, sewage treatment plants, and water saving fixtures. What people should keep in mind is, desilting rain water pits every two to three years for water to percolate and ground water level to increase. Now coming to energy, power saving fittings, renewable energy, bringing in natural day light in the room to reduce dependency on artificial lights, improving air circulation to bring down heat, building envelope including terrace should use specific materials which will in-turn bring down the consumption of air conditioners during summer. All these sustainable measures, considered for rating a building, will lead to solving the problem that cities are now facing.