The Hindu : Green building market expanding

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 04, 2004

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National

Green building market expanding

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, FEB. 3. The Indian Green Building Council is working on fine-tuning the parameters of the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Rating system of the United States to suit Indian conditions, according to ParasuRaman R, Chairman of the Indian Green Building Council, a constituent of the CII-Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre, Hyderabad.

He said that in view of the water scarcity in India, the weightage given to water efficiency will have to be increased, and that for energy management might be reduced correspondingly, while retaining the basic principles and values of the LEED system of the U.S. Green Building Council (US GBC). Addressing a press conference here today, Mr. ParasuRaman, who has been elected Vice-Chairman of the World Green Building Council at the annual conference of the US GBC held in Pittsburgh recently, said corporates such as the ITC, Godrej, Tatas, ICICI, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, NEG Micon and Grundfos Pumps, besides the Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers Association (IMMTA), Bangalore, were keen on constructing green buildings with technical inputs from the CII-Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre. The green building market in India was set to touch Rs. 750 crores by 2006. This would give a boost to the construction industry and manufacturers of green products (non-toxic paints, wood from sustainable forestry, flyash bricks, recyclable and non-toxic carpets etc).

Mr. ParasuRaman, said the parameters for rating green buildings included energy efficiency, water management, renewable energy, air circulation management, human productivity, use of sustainable building materials, recyclability and landscaping. The CII Sohrabji Godrej centre's building in Hyderabad was the first outside the U.S. and the third in the world to get the Platinum Rating of the US GBC under the revised and tougher Version 2.0 of the LEED rating system, scoring 53 points out of a maximum of 63. For certification as a Green Building, the minimum score needed was 26. The centre had used almost wholly flyash bricks and flyash cement, installed solar energy panels and systems for 100 per cent water treatment and use of treated water for gardening.

A meeting of the World GBC would be held in Hyderabad on August 25 and 26, to be followed by the second international convention of the CII-Sohrabji Godrej Centre up to August 29.

S. Raghupathy, Senior Director and Head of the centre, highlighted the support given by the Andhra Pradesh Government by way of allotment of land for the centre at a minimal cost.

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