GREEN BUILDING TECHNOLOGY
Green Building concept in India
In India, a number of agencies are involved in the Green Building concept execution and monitoring. The major agencies are – Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Indian Green Building Council (IGBC). The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) was established in 1974 and is headquartered at New Delhi. TERI has developed a new rating system for Green Building assessment. This rating system is called Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA). In India, both the LEED and the GRIHA rating systems are followed along with the Energy Conservation Building Code 2007 given by BEE.
Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA) rating system:
GRIHA was developed by TERI and has been adopted by the ministry of new and renewable resources. It takes into account the variations in the climate, architectural practices followed and the practices for construction and also keeps the National Building Code 2005 as well as the Energy Conservation Building Code 2007.
GRIHA has been specially created keeping in mind the non-air conditioned and the partially air conditioned buildings. GRIHA provides ratings for institutional, residential and commercial buildings. The emphasis is on the national concerns for environment, the weather and climate conditions, and providing solutions.
According to the information collected, the following hypothesis is formulated:
The benefits of Green Building approach are significantly greater than the costs incurred to go green
Green Building concept and corporate sustainability:
For corporations, green building concept comes with a bundle of benefits. The benefits include:
Potentially higher capital value in the future for the building
Risk of obsolescence decreases
The demand from institutional investors increases
Operating costs reduce for the building
The attrition for the tenant decreases
The maintenance cost reduces
The need for refurbishment in the future decreases
Green Building concept also helps in ensuring that the business stays insulated from any energy price increase in the future
Cost and Benefits of Green Buildings:
The major barrier found towards Green Building concept, through research conducted, is the widespread perception amongst people that the upfront costs involved in the development of a green building are significantly higher than those of conventional buildings. In a survey, by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in the year 2007, it was found that the people perceived the green buildings’ initial setup costs to be higher than the conventional buildings by 17 percent. This perception of the people was found to be wrong.
170 buildings were analysed in the research in Greening our built world. The analysis revealed that the green buildings cost, on an average, less than 2 percent more than the conventional buildings, also providing a large range of additional benefits. The same survey, by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, also found that the people perceive buildings to produce around 20 percent of the CO2 emission. This perception is also wrong since buildings produce around 40 percent of the world CO2 emissions. The architects and the developers interviewed from these 170 buildings gave information on the premium, in terms of cost of turning green.
The following figure illustrates the cost premium that is incurred, in green building development according to the levels of certification by LEED rating system. It shows that more than 80 out of the 170 buildings analysed have incurred less than 2 percent premium in going green.
