sustainuance - october 2012

Green-rated buildings are the new rage but not without a fair share of debate around the costs, the benefits—and the rating standards too. What works best in Indian context? Know what experts say!

ESTATEgreen art

OF THE

A Saaga Interactive Publication

Volume 01 • Issue 02 • Mumbai • 68 Pages • October 2012 • Price `100

www. sustainuance.com

India’s First Corporate Sustainability Magazine

India’s leading architect Hafeez Contractor on Green Buildings

Basics of creating a GRI Sustainability Report

How the new Mobile Radiation Norms will pan out

DJ Pandian, Principal Secretary, Gujarat on the renewable revolution

The dark clouds

ED’s Note

Recently, a post on my Facebook wall read something like this: the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. Scaling it to 46 years, we’ve been here for 4 hours, and our industrial revolution began just a minute ago. In that time, we have destroyed more than 50 percent of the world’s forests.

Indeed, the veracity of the facts presented in the post can be debated and discussed, but we can’t debunk them anymore. It is a no-brainer that the current model of growth and progress is no more sustainable from an economic and ecological point of view. India stands to be impacted relatively more severely, if a recent World Economic Forum (WEF) report is to be any indicator.

The annual Global Competitiveness Report by WEF underscores the co-relation of sustainability and economic well-being. For the first time, WEF has come up with sustainability-adjusted Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), a metric that intends to assess the “the set of institutions, policies and factors that make a nation remain productive over the longer term while ensuring social and environmental sustainability”. India, the world’s second-largest country by population, scores rather poorly on the new metric. Of the 144 countries ranked on the GCI scale, India slipped in rank from 56 to 59.

That’s not the worst part though. When the sustainability metrics—social and environmental—were

integrated, India’s overall score fell from 4.32 to 3.73, on a scale of seven. Moreover, India was the worst performer among the BRIC nations, far behind others in the group.

The writing is clear on the wall, and indeed our government needs to draft thorough legislations that also incentivize the corporate sector to accelerate the green uptake, but the industry too needs to proactively find ways and means in which they can cut their carbon footprints. This requires a holistic approach, inside-out and outside-in.

A good place to start would be the green buildings. Over the past couple of years, green buildings as a concept have gained

momentum, thanks to the financial windfall it brought with certified emission reductions (CERs). The good thing is now it’s going apace, sim-ply because of the sheer savings in terms of energy consumption. The movement has caught up so much these days that outside of the US, India has the highest number of LEED-rated buildings in the world.

Considering this, SustaiNuance decided to dedicate a whole issue to green buildings, discussing the benefits, the how-to and even the contro-versies around the rating standards. Celebrated Indian architect Hafeez Contractor too shares his candid views on the green building movement, and why he thinks (or rather not) that the rating business is a joke when it comes to India.

Needless to say, we are all ears to whatever comments, quips or thoughts that you have on the subject or on the magazine. I would encour-age you to drop me a line at [email protected]. Green regards till we meet next month..

A silver lining is that India

has the highest number of

LEED-rated buildings after

the US

External links on sustainability

http://www.weforum.org/reportshttp://www.sustainability.com/bloghttp://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainability/blog

Shashwat DC Editor -in-Chief

October 2012 Sustainuance 3

CONTENTS

1012

October 2012 • Vol.1 Issue 2

08 Long View Ganesh Natarajan

16 Sunshine Creativity A Solar Annual Report wins adverting award

34 Hafeez ContractorWhy one of the best known architects calls green buildings a joke in India

38 A million-footfall opportunity Cut energy expenses using plug-on techs

20 Twilight Inspired! Why not? Green buildings, once the hallmark of homes that our great grandparents lived in a matter-of-factly manner, are back into visibility for all the right reasons

4 Sustainuance October 2012

54 Gujarat Focus A glance at the solar power projects

62 A big-picture framework How India fares on GRI standards

44 Green comes home in India A photo-feature on the greenest buildings

40 A personal Journey Prasanto Roy sheds light on how India’s first Griha green home happened and the road ahead for others. The bonus of going green:you stand out from the crowd

58 Solar price could come down DJ Pandian shows how political will and bureaucratic fervour can go a long way in achieving renewable revolution

66 Viewpoint Deepak Kumar seeks best answers to India’s sustainability needs

Chairman & Managing Director: Uday S SurveEditor-in-Chief: Shashwat DCPrinter & Publisher: Sameer P Gore

Consulting Editor: Deepak KumarAssociate Editor: Abhijit DContent Manager (Web): Jigna KhajuriaSpecial Correspondent: Pratima HSenior Correspondent: Saikat NandiCorrespondent: Sailee Karnik Neha Kumari Tanu Kaur Ankur Verma

Design Director: Nirmal BiswasSenior Designer Graphic: Mahesh WalunjHead Web Solutions: Amit Patil

Senior Sales Manager: Mahesh L ShettySales Manager: Ameeta ShahOnline Marketing Manager: Imtiyaz RashidAd Coordinator: Roshan Fernandes

Operations Manager: Rahoul TeliAccounts & Admin Manager: Gajpal RanaAssistant Manager (Subscription) Pooja Gondhalekar

Circulation Manager: Vishal LadkatProduction Head: Riken Manseta

Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission from Saaga Interactive Private Limited is prohibited. The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the publisher. Copyright: All rights reserved.

Published and Printed by Sameer Pradeep Gore on behalf of Saaga Interactive Private Limited. Published at 510, Western Edge-1, Western Express Highway, Borivali (East), Mumbai - 400066. Printed at Amruta Print Arts, JR Boricha Marg, Opp. Kasturba Hospital, Mahalaxmi, Mumbai - 400 011. Editor: Shashwat Dinesh Chaturvedi


@ INBOX

Magazine is making the best efforts to educate all sections of society about the green and it has created an awareness in masses about green and need to turn towards green. Wonderful work they are doing for making this planet worth living.

Rakesh Bhardwaj, Sr. Manager international Business, Manu International

Green and Sustainability are areas which impact each one of us - be in our professional lives or personal lives. In this context, Sustainuance comes across as a very lively maga-zine which covers the topic of Green and Sustainability beautifully. I liked the quality of articles and also the lay-out and quality of magazine in general a lot. My compliments to the editorial team and I am sure you will not only Sustain the quality of magazine but take it to even higher levels

Vijay Sethi, VP and CIO, Hero MotoCorp

It was very nice to have the magazine in hands today. It looks like a class magazine. And all the articles are simple, informative and useful. I hope Sustainuance continues the same way and wish all the best to the team who created this.

Daman Dev Sood, CIO & Head- Sustainability Practice, Continuity and Resilience

Many congratulations on launching the magazine and I find myself a passionate reader saw that this is one of its kind and unique initiative by your team. I feel by the monthly quality contents and insight of industry you will create a different wave in the industry which will create a platform, strategies and let the industry think of adopting sustainability more than its definition.

Vijay Choudhary, Head IT, HRH Group of Hotels

My heartiest congratulation to you. This is something new other than the regular magazines either for IT or otherwise. I would like to receive copy of this. My address is mentioned below. If the online edition became downloadable, I will prefer that to support green.

Atul Bansal, VP IT & Operations at Indiabulls Real Estate Ltd

Awesome effort. The magazine looks great and the articles are quite potent. I loved the cover story on the CSO.

Preetham Venkky, Business Head - Asia, KRDS

Congratulations on the launch of Sustainuance. I’m happy with this ini-tiative to focus on sustainability and wish you and your team the very best. Hope to see this magazine to be very successful in India and even more importantly, hope that this magazine inspires companies and individuals and of course the government to take positive steps for a better future. I must say that the articles in the magazine were very interesting and kept gripped to read more.

Rishar Raviraj, Senior Account Manager, Waggener Edstrom

Congratulation for the launching of India’s first monthly magazine on corporate sustainability. Corporate Sustainability is a new mindset for Corporate Responsibility. It emphasis on innovation as the means to add value to the environment and society at large. For this there should be a body at board level with the power to make a firm rules with people power align with all business systems with the company’s vision of sustainability. Sustainability also includes extensive re-engineering of the corporate structure.

Vivek Dharia, CIO, KNP Securities

This is a much talked subject in cor-porates; however I feel there is lack of knowledge in the area. I wish and hope the magazine will help address that.

Jethin Chandran, Assistant Vice President, Hexaware Technologies

You magazine looks good in terms of design and content. It makes for a real good read, as well. Await the next edition.

Ravish Jhala, Systems Manager at Oberoi Hotels & Resorts

I went through some of the articles of the magazine. Really commendable job. Looking forward for next edition.

Vaibhav Patni, Program Manager at Setu Net Pvt. Ltd

CEOs from across verticals share their opinion on the need, necessity and practicality of a chief sustainability officer within their enterprise

Burning daylight oilTelcos grapple with Diesel

Green-touch bankingBanks look anew at green

Namaste London!Celebrating the greenest Olympics

A Saaga Interactive Publication

Gujarat’s Renewable RevolutionA roundup on how the state is going green

Volume 01 • Issue 01 • Mumbai • 70 Pages • August 2012 • Price `100

www. sustainuance.com

Write to us @[email protected] on Facebook @facebook.com/SustainuanceTwitter updates @twitter.com/sustainuanceRead more @ www.sustainuance.com


INBOX

LONG VIEW

Many chief executives believe that the topic of environment and sustainability is a specialized

one and cannot provide opportunities for employees to participate. Nothing could be further from the truth. With organizations spending a significant amount of money on CSR activities including environment initi-atives, it is worthwhile to review the returns and also to question whether the potential of employees is being leveraged adequately.

The area of environment sustainability offers immense scope for individual-led initiatives, be it in terms of following best practices at a personal level, advocating in one’s society, community or neighbourhood school, or leading organizational initiatives. In Zensar’s own early initiatives on envi-ronment protection advocacy in collabora-tion with ALERT – an organization set up by Vandana Chavan before she became a Member of Parliament – there were more than a hundred employees actively involved. Even today, in various initiatives at our campus and external investments like the Bio-Diversity Park coming up on a prime Pune land, it is the employees led by our Sustainability & CSR group who are making a big difference!

Communication to employees on CSR initiatives and their impact can be through regular e-newsletters, the organization’s intranet, or even formal training programs that also inform employees how they can contribute. Ideally the organization should be an enabler and not a doer, and facilitate direct involvement of employees. This requires a concerted effort to create relevant volunteering opportunities geared to the specific interests, skills and convenience of employees. Every opportunity should be taken to encourage volunteerism whether as

“The organization should be an enabler and not a doer, and facilitate direct involvement of employees”

Sustainability initiatives can be driven well if led by a community of volunteering employees

Ganesh Natarajan & Ruchi Mathur

part of internal company communiqués or a large ‘volunteer now’ button on the intranet home page. Direct employee intervention not only builds engagement but also unleashes the resources of thousands, thereby multi-plying the impact of CSR and sustainability. Doing this through change-maker commu-nities is even more effective and sustainable as it leads to best-practice sharing, ideation and team work.

It is important to recognize and reward employee contribution. Moreover, recogni-tion would be most effective coming right from the top – leadership plays a strong role in setting the tone. While most organiza-tions have caught on to the external mar-keting potential of green (building brand image), there is a lot to be gained by internal marketing as well. Involving employees in these initiatives can also lead to more engaged employees and can be a critical weapon in the war for talent by aiding recruitment, motivation and retention. The time to make it happen is now!

Zensar for one strongly believes in employee involvement in CSR activities and targets direct involvement of nearly 20 percent of its employee base in India through education, health and environment related activities. In the area of environment, employees have participated directly in events such as cycle rallies, spreading aware-ness on global warming, and most recently, development of a biodiversity park close to the office location.

Ganesh Natarajan and Ruchi Mathur are with Zensar Technologies Ltd. Ganesh is also the Chairman of the Knowledge Committee of CII and a member of the Chairmen’s Council of Nasscom.

Let employees be torchbearers!


Sustainable transport – need of the hour

If you live in a metro city, you would totally understand the need for a good public transport system. And if you live in India, whether in a metro or a small village, you must have felt the

need of efficient transportation - or the lack of it.Transportation is one of the primary public services and hence,

becomes crucial to the sustainability of our economies, societies, and natural environments. Whether we live in a developed or developing nation, moving safely from one place to another is part of our daily lives. Without sustainable transportation, children cannot go safely to school, goods cannot reach markets on time, and the harmful emissions will only worsen climate change.

The present system of growing motoriza-tion is highly unsustainable. It leads to increas-ing use of fossil fuel, traffic jams, air pollution, greenhouse gases and more road accidents. However, we must also understand that sus-tainable transport is a developmental issue, and is not limited to a single group of people. Slum dwellers or high-rise people, urban or rural, rich or poor, conveyance is intricately linked to the life of each and every one. The urban population is going to increase rapidly in the next decade, putting more pressure on the existing means of conveyance our cities have. That the transportation sector needs to shift to a more sustainable path is very well under-stood everywhere.

What we really need is sustainable transport policies world-wide. Active citizens, corporates and environmentalists can do their bit by pushing national governments to enforce sustainable transport policies, standards, and funding schemes. Transport being a public utility, its efficiency and sustainability should be determined by the government laws and investments.

So what is the solution to get sustain-able transport system in our cities? They can be summed up as follows:-

1. Avoiding: automobile travel through denser, mixed-use urban development.

2. Shifting: transport to more cost effective, low-carbon modes like bicycling and rapid bus transit.

3. Improving: the energy efficiency of vehicles.

These factors, however, do not depend so much on technology or usefulness as on political will and the capacity to imple-ment them. No doubt strategic investment in transport is needed, but these need to be accompanied by governance reforms,

Slum dwellers or high-rise people, urban or rural, rich or poor - conveyance is intricately linked to the life of each and every one.

improved operations and performance of the system and more accountability. Governments must realize the requirement for low-cost, energy efficient, easily accessible transporta-tion system and investments.

The recent Rio+20 provided a major oppor-tunity to unite various governments to commit to sustainable development, including trans-portation. This success was largely achieved by the Partnership for Sustainable Low-Carbon Transport, a coalition of over sixty diverse transport-related organizations.

The Rio+20 conference was a break-through for sustainable transport because the Partnership coordinated 16 voluntary commit-ments from NGO’s and multilateral institu-

tions. Most notably, the world’s 8 largest multilateral banks (MDBs), committed to invest $175 billion over ten years to advance more sustainable transport, with annual reporting and monitoring.

Great plans are made and some targets are achieved, yet a lot of work remains to be done to ensure that this drive for sustainable transport from Rio+20 translates into real change.

NEWS


$4 billion plan to endorse hybrid vehicles in India

The Government of India has approved a project for the promo-tion of environmentally-friendly electric and hybrid vehi-cles. The cost of the plan is estimated at Rs.20,000-Rs.23,000

crore ($4 billion), which will be invested over a period of eight years.

“The first meeting of the National Council for Electric Mobility (NCEM) has adopted the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020 (NEMMP 2020),” Vikram Gulati, director in the ministry of heavy industries and public sector enterprises said.

The project predicts generation of 60-70 lakh electric and hybrid vehicles, including passenger cars, two-wheelers, trucks and three-wheelers by 2020. Currently the electric and hybrid vehicles have less than one percent of the overall 17 million units per annum automobile market in the country. The use of hybrid vehicles will

lower the use of fossil fuels and will lead to cost savings, which is estimated to be triple the actual amount invested in the scheme.

The objectives of NEMMP 2020 include setting up of manu-facturing units and infrastructure, acquiring technologies, and creating awareness and demand, added Gulati. The NEMMP 2020 is part of the automotive mission plan (AMP) 2016 under the national mission for electric mobility.

Automobile manufacturers such as Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Hyundai Motor, General Motors, Toyota Kirloskar Motor and Mahindra and Mahindra are already working on using electric and hybrid technologies. Two-wheeler manufacturers like Hero MotoCorp and TVS Motor had also displayed hybrid models of their scooters at the Delhi Auto Expo held earlier this year.

The proposed plan expects collaboration between the govern-ment and industry in rolling out initial projects. It will include private investments as well.

Gulati said that the ministry will soon finalize several schemes under the NEMMP 2020 which will then be sent for a final approval of the government.

The proposed plan will include private investments as well.


Solar, nuclear power can sustain India’s energy needs: Kakodkar

Nuclear energy is safe, says Anil Kakodkar, former chairman of

Atomic Energy Commission of India. Contrary to the belief that older methods of generating energy are safer compared to nuclear energy, research proves otherwise. Data says that the fatalities per kilowatt-hour are least in nuclear energy “even accounting for Chernobyll”.

He pointed out that environmental radiation that people are exposed to even in normal rooms is 100 times higher than the radi-ation at the fence post of a nuclear plant. He cited that people are afraid of nuclear energy because they’ve only heard about nuclear weapons.

Kakodkar also added that the only other form of energy that is as safe as nuclear energy is solar energy. He said this at a lecture on “Challenges of promoting a green economy” at Goa.

Existing resources like coal are not going to last long, hence, India needs to make the transition from fossil energy to green energy quickly. The former chairman of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre also said that thorium and solar energy, both of which are green, are the only answers to India’s energy demands. Though the potential for hydro power is huge, it will contribute only about 7% of India’s increasing energy needs.

Once the grid is freed from the non-paying consumers, electric-ity tariff will reduce and benefit the economy. He suggested the use of solar energy for lighting in rural areas. If this is done, not only will India save on huge subsidies given on kerosene, but emissions polluting the atmosphere will also be eliminated.

Kakodkar added that we need to create eco-systems in educa-tion, in government and in industry. Kakodkar said that if garbage is segregated at source, recycled or treated as applicable, it can generate methane, manure, etc. “There is no waste. Every waste is a resource,” he said.

Avoid cheap Chinese materials: Abdullah

That the world has had to deal with lots of dupli-cate Chinese products is a known fact. Now the solar energy equipment manufacturers are also

facing a similar dilemma. The Minister of New and Renewable Energy, Farooq Abdullah, has asked the manufacturers to avoid buying “cheap” materials from China to boost their profits.

The minister made these remarks at a time when the native solar industry is facing tough competition from Chinese manufacturers. He urged the industry to pro-vide good quality equipment and services in the sector.

“India will have to fight with the oil lobbies to come up strongly in the renewable energy sector,” the Union minister said while addressing a workshop on Solar Water Heaters organised by the MNRE.

Abdullah also added that Army was one of the larg-est users of diesel in states such as Jammu and Kashmir. But now it plans to switch over to renewable sources for its various requirements.

The minister also appealed the solar industry to provide post-installation services such as repairs and maintenance.

The only other form of energy that is as safe as nuclear energy is solar energy.

NEWS


Fresh water out of thin air – an experiment!

Bringing fresh water to the remotest and driest parts of the world seems a possibility now. Marc Parent, a French inventor, is experimenting on

the same.Inspired by the mechanics of a dripping air condi-

tioner, Parent created wind turbines that literally pull fresh water out of thin air. His experiment, called the WMS1000, uses electricity generated from a windmill to collect and treat water without using any existing water source such as a river, lake or well.

His company, Eole Water, is testing the invention in France and Abu Dhabi.

“Each unit can create 1,000 liters of drinking water using only moisture and powered only by wind. Let me highlight this word : CREATE. All existing solutions (wells, desalination, lakes/rivers pumping, etc.) only treat an existing source of water,” said Thibault Janin, Marketing and Communication Director of Eole Water.

The technology integrates water creation, water collection, water treatment and local distribution. The WMS1000 can produce and distribute water eve-rywhere. “Today, people only use centralized distribu-tion, from a centre point to others. With our turbine, we wish to decentralize the water access,” Janin said.

The company claims that the logistic and pro-cess of this project are easy to install and oper-ate. It can be an answer to various issues like massive population movements, swelling cities, increased diseases and health care costs, or a solution to agri-culture.

India Inc less transparent in sustainability reporting: Survey

Indian companies seem to hold a poor track record compared to Brazil, China and South Africa when it comes to sustainability reporting, according to a non-profit organization working for a

sustainable global economy.However, 80 companies in India that have set up a reporting

mechanism come up with the best disclosures worldwide, says the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Among the lead adopters of this practice in India are Larsen & Toubro, JSW Steel and the Mahindra Group.

A review of the annual reports of Sensex-listed companies reveals that most Indian companies dedicate at least some space to summarize their CSR activities and other initiatives to conserve energy and environment.

But for the GRI, these disclosures are not up to the mark it has set for sustain-ability reporting. It has strategic partnerships with the United Nations Environment Programme, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and International Organisation for Standardisation.

“We have a standard framework — the sustainability reporting guidelines or GRI guidelines. It must be a separate report from companies,” said Aditi Haldar, Director of the GRI’s Focal Point India.

A sustainability report is an organization’s report on its eco-nomic, environmental, social and governance performance. According to GRI, sustainability is based on performance in these four key areas.

The Indian authorities also seem to be thinking on the same line as GRI. Market regulator SEBI on August 13 announced a compre-hensive format for sustainability reporting by Indian companies. It has directed the top 100 companies to bring out sustainability reports from the next financial year and the requirement will be gradually expanded to other listed entities.

The GRI has a standard framework for the sustainability reporting guidelines.

The testing for this invention is going on in France and Abu Dhabi.


CSR guidelines not obligatory for companies: Govt

The Centre stated that it has not done any assess-ment to determine whether companies are com-plying to the various corporate social responsi-

bility (CSR) guidelines.Corporate Affairs Minister Veerappa Moily

informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply that the gov-ernment has not made it mandatory for the corporate sector to spend two percent of the companies’ profit on CSR activities.

These guidelines are for the central public sector enterprises (CPSEs), and there are no mandatory guide-lines or provisions for spending by Indian companies on CSR activities, Moily added.

The Department of Public Enterprises had issued guidelines in April 2010 for CPSEs to create a CSR budget as a specified percentage of net profit of the previous year, he said.

Market regulator SEBI also directed top 100 listed entities by market capitalisation at the BSE and NSE to include ‘Business Responsibility Reports’ as part of their annual reports. Other listed companies may voluntarily disclose their Business Responsibility Reports, the minister said.

US firm’s Rs 580 crore solar power gift to Bihar

This news comes hot on trail of reports claiming India’s annoyance with US for

damaging its solar energy industry. Schanti Partners, a US-based agency, has shown keen interest in investing Rs 580 crore for a solar energy project in Kaimur district of Bihar.

The firm intends to set up a 10MW unit initially. The agency will sign a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) at the proposed rate of Rs 12.50/kWh. The phase-wise project will produce 50 MW in future.

Bihar gets 330 sunshine days in a year and has one of the highest solar insolation rates in the world. The Kaimur district has strong electricity infra-structure, with grid connectivity and electrical substations.

The project will use photovoltaic technology. This technology is based on Concentrating Photovoltaic (CPV) system, which is PV technology with an optical system that focuses sunlight over a large area onto each cell.

The Export-Import Bank of the US will be financing the project. The letter of intent provides for about $30 million in financial support, depending upon various factors, including the extent of US-made solar power equipment.

The US agency will procure land privately for the project, with-out depending on Bihar industrial land bank. It will lease land directly from the owners for a 30-year term, in lieu of annual lease payments to them.

All relevant government agencies, like the Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB), the Bihar State Investment Promotion Board and the Bihar Renewable Energy Development Agency (BREDA) have given their approval for the project.

State officials expect that this investment in Bihar will create numerous jobs for local people and boost economic development. “With the setting up of this solar energy plant, Bihar will emerge as a leader in solar energy development among eastern states of India,” said an official.

The guidelines are mainly for the central public sector enterprises.

The investment is expected to create numerous jobs for local people and boost economic development.

www.sustainuance.com Read more at:

NEWS


COUNTER POINT

energy, as well as waste management—all the things that can be measured exactly can show the progress year by year!

But that’s not helping the tribals to nurture their indigenous knowledge to protect the environment. You can always talk about what you are doing. But it is almost impossible to show in a span of two-three years what has been achieved because of that. Sustainable agriculture is another area that is outside the radar of the corporate world, because “it is too slow to measure the impact within a reasonable timeframe.” They don’t want their time and resources to be “wasted” on these kind of efforts.

In the age of instant gratification, few have patience to invest time and resources in areas that will take 20 years to show some result. Unfortunately, they are equally important. And sustainability efforts cannot be complete without those pockets being addressed.

Like it or not, sustainability is still a philosophy. Many of us pretend it is an exact science. And by trying to define it by its measurability quotient is taking it a little too far along that path. While measuring efforts and continuously striving to measure the impact of those efforts is a journey that must continue, to pretend that nothing else exists is fooling ourselves. If we label these efforts as “social responsibility”, let us be respon-sible. Investors and customers are, at the end, human beings. By giving them and their future generations a better earth to live in, you are creating value for them. Not every initiative should result in a better or cheaper product or in your stock price rise.

Shyamanuja Das, is a renowned journalist, editor and social commentor. His current designation is Director, Analyziz Advisory and he can be reached on [email protected]

We often use the words “respon-sibility” and “accountability” interchangeably. The words—

while broadly meaning the same—differ from each other in two important ways. Accountability clearly denotes some sort of answerability to a distinct person or group of persons such as a superior authority, a set of investors, or the electorate, while responsibility can be assumed without any such answerability. The second difference follows from the first. If one has to be answerable, there has to be a measure to evaluate whether a pre-decided promise or expectation has been fulfilled. So, measur-ability is essential to accountability.

It is not surprising that the word in fashion in the corporate world is accountability; every action must result in something that is clearly measurable. Inherent to that expectation is an implicit assumption that one has access to the kno-whow, tools and techniques for measuring the impact of every action.

Most of the champions of measurability won’t even acknowledge that something that cannot be measured exists on this earth. There is probably a consultant out there who has developed some tool to measure it; if not, it can be developed.

For those who are sensible enough to realize that not everything is measurable with the existing human knowledge, often want to steer clear of those “immeasur-able” things and want to proceed with only those that are clearly measurable.

That is okay, as long as people want to measure their efforts. The Global Reporting Intiative (GRI) is a very nice initiative but it measures efforts. And that is how it should be. Problem arises when people believe they can measure the impact of every action that they undertake, within a limited time span.

This ‘measurability syndrome’ is doing more harm to sustainability efforts than one can imagine.

Consider this. Today, investors and customers expect corporate entities to be environmentally responsible. And that is fair. But how do you impress them? Just efforts don’t suffice anymore; companies also want to show off the impact of their environment friendly efforts. And numbers always score. So carbon footprint and the progress in reducing emission is a big plus. It can be measured exactly. Use of water, generation and use of renewable

Is measurability diluting sustainability efforts?

Acting responsibly towards the environment is foremost; instead there is an overemphasis on measuring the impact of ‘green’ acts

By Shyamanuja Das

The ‘measurability syndrome’ is doing more harm to sustainability efforts than one would imagine


IMPACT

creativity!SunshineWhy a solar energy provider’s annual report, filled with routine financial data, won a Cannes Advertising Fest award

By Pratima H

For the design jury deciding on this year’s Grand Prix at Cannes Advertising festival, it was literally a blank spot at first: a nomination

staring them on their desk was blank. The case study presented to them was strange, and did not sound convincing. So one of them went out, flipped the pages open again in the sun and came back with gooseflesh and a finally-convinced exclamation, “You’ve got to see this, it’s amazing!”

An annual report that shows nothing unless

opened in the sun! What else could quintessentially convey what the

client does? A thumbs-up by the jurors may be, and an award won hands-down.

For Alexander Schill, Chief Creative Officer and his creative team at Serviceplan, the brief at first was anything but exciting. An annual report for a solar energy provider, understandably, is not the kind of product with any precedence or scope to spark grey cells of advertising folks.


To think outside the box gets a tad challenging when there is no box to start with. How do you inject radical approach inside the veins of a space where both the product and the category have always been despairingly anemic to breakthrough thinking? If the word solar energy did not sound geeky enough, the word annual report consummated the ‘boring’ effect. Schill and his creative team comprising Christoph Everke, Cosimo Moeller, Alexander Nagel, Moritz Dornig and Matthaeus Frost (all Art), Mathias Noesel (copywriting), Stefen Meier (print shop) and Waldmann, (bookbinding) took the challenge.

The team did manage to utter a ‘Eureka’ amidst all yawns, and with some great partners and an encouraging client, even shocked the world with what the people from creative universe call ‘the Oscar of Advertising’.

At Serviceplan, the Munich, Germany-based agency, the envy-inspiring ride started the day when this client wanted to develop a remarkable medium that could portray Austria Solar as an innovative player of the Austrian solar industry.

The team knew it had to be something remarkably different to make enough noise in a world where the category itself is labeled as weary.

It took a while but when the idea finally flashed through their mind, it was like a sun shining generously. How about a report that could only be read under sunlight!

It took a while to come to the right mixing ratio, and eventually they struck the gold (literally so with the award), with the use of environment-friendly photochromatic colors in just the precise ratios. The result, anyone who wanted to read a page out of the report could not do so, unless under the sun, that is without ultraviolet rays.

Congratulations on the gong! How excit-ing was the brief at the initial stage? Tell us about the Eureka moment? The brief itself was not exciting, as an annual report normally is not really exciting. We are talking about numbers, aren’t we? But as in every creative process there was a special moment when something special happened. That was when the basic idea and the how-to idea came together.

I presume that by now you have received more than 400 requests from all over the world, e.g. Ernest & Young, the Austrian office of the Federal Chancellor, the TED Conference and Greenpeace to name a few. And interestingly, the printing company Mory & Meier is being overwhelmed with orders. How does it feel for effectiveness, the cliche argument against creative advertising? Was it as smooth and well-received at the stage where you were navigating the idea initially?

To be honest it was not smooth and we are still trying hard to handle the requests. We are now planning to print the third edition, which we may sell publicly. Nobody could foresee the amount of reactions because after all it is still only an annual report of an Austrian solar energy association, which is very well done but never was planned for a global audience.

Executing a creative epiphany is often easier than done. How easy was it?

It was a hard way but not because of unwilling partners or the client. It was simply so because it was new. So we had to test again and again and again, and thanks to our partners it finally worked.

Do you think that lack of creativity is more of a challenge than viability when it comes to green ideas not taking off as much as they should, for such things as hybrid cars, fuel cells, solar lanterns, organic clothing?

Green ideas often are hip but not made for the mass market. That makes them expensive and so it is not easy to realize them.

Should there be a separate and more apt green category at Cannes too? No. I don’t think so. It is better to have green ideas in every category since they should be part of our life and not something special.

When you look around, do you find any other piece of work (legacy or contemporary) impressive enough in this space?

Yes, there are very good examples like the “wwf-print-app” that was made by Jung von Matt last year.

Any next set of briefs or clients in this space that you can talk about? There is a project we are working on at the moment, but since it is at a very early stage of development I can’t talk about it right now.

Why do environmentally-oriented products, services and initiatives fail to get the traction that looks like a duck soup in theory? One often blames viability, perhaps without ever considering about the conspicuous gap called creativity. The unusual annual report that took home an award at Cannes Advertising fest 2012, urges green leaders to unlock the power of creativity. Christoph Everke, Managing Director and Partner Serviceplan Campaign, helps discover more about creativity mandates around green ideas:

“Awards for green ideas should be in all categories”

Creative agency Serviceplan was tasked to portray Austria Solar as an innovative player in the Austrian solar industry

Christoph Everke, Managing Director and Partner Serviceplan Campaign


FEATURE

There’s a pending need to embrace holistic models wherein wireline and wireless techs complement each other towards sustainability goals

By Deepak Kumar

Telcos can choose to see new radiation limits as opportunity to move to greener alternatives that can drastically cut down carbon footprints of mobile towers

If anything could come close to planet Mars in terms of being storm ridden, it would be India’s telecom sector! One of the lesser storms brewing

these days is rooted in the new electromagnetic radia-tion norms effected by Department of Telecom (DoT) from September 1.

What is more, DoT didn’t lose much time in taking on-ground measures to enforce the new norms, some-thing that didn’t seem to have made mobile operators particularly happy.

Exactly 12 days after the new radiation norms became effective for mobile towers in India, DoT officials decided to run a random check for a mobile tower in a Mumbai locality. The findings revealed that the radiation levels in the nearby houses were way above the new prescribed limits, following which DoT said it served spot notices to the seven mobile operators who had their anten-nas hosted on the tower.

In a release issued the very next day, DoT said the checks had been carried out by a high-level delegation of its officials, led by Advisor – Technology, DoT. Also, spot orders were issued to all

seven operators to stop radiating from the tower with immediate effect till the time the radiation levels were brought in compliance with the new norms.

At short notice, DoT said its officials also organized a meeting with all the 11 mobile service operators in the Mumbai circle, well represented and attended by officials from the telecom companies. DoT says it was conveyed to the telcos that they should compre-hensively carry out checks to determine which base transceiver stations (BTS) were non-compliant and to either make them compliant or shut them down.

Arguments and counter-argumentsTelcos responded through the industry body, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), reportedly saying due time should be given to ascertain the non-compliant towers. Various other arguments, direct or indirect, were also fielded against a seemingly determined enforcement of the new radiation norms by DoT.

One ‘logically valid’ argument was that reduced radiation levels along with shutting down of BTSs would lead to weakened signals and degraded quality of services, something that would not be in the good interest of subscribers.

A counter-argument has been that telcos could

The airwave overkill


have gone for smaller form factor cells in place of tower mounted macro cells. Options in the form of femto cells and pico cells have existed for several years now and there has been the required awareness, too, in the industry on the benefits of these micro cells. I myself remember first writing on the merits of femto and pico cells at lease more than two years ago.

Ashok K Aggarwal, Director General, Telecom Equipment Manufacturers’ Association of India (TEMA) points out, “Instructions were issued in November 2011 by DoT to mobile operators for limit-ing the norms of radiation from mobile towers across the country to 0.9 watts per sq. meter (1,800 MHz). In spite of this, mobile operators have been delaying the implementation of norms and ultimately DoT came out with a firm decision for implementation from September 1, 2012. However, these have to be implemented in true sense by having a strict check-ing through the TERM Cells of DoT.”

Typically, femto cells come in form factors akin to the Wi-Fi access points so commonly used in offices and campuses. These don’t require huge tower struc-tures and can instead be mounted on rooftops. More importantly, these are low-powered devices and don’t require diesel gensets to run when the utility supply is not there. An in-building low-power source like a battery attached to a UPS or an inverter can suffice.

Imagine the savings telcos could realize by imple-menting a network architecture that maximizes use of such small form-factor cells. Doesn’t it make good business sense for telcos?

It makes sustainability sense tooAny technology that potentially compromises public health cannot be termed as sustainable. It is good therefore that just a month after Delhi High Court heard a petition seeking that the cellphone towers be installed at least 50 meters away from residences, and more so from schools and hospitals, DoT had imple-mented a new set of norms for mobile tower radiations.

With that, the exposure limits for mobile phone tow-ers were lowered to one-tenth of the then existing levels.

The fact that DoT has categorized tower distances based on the number of antennas they host, makes the new norms meaningful.

More needs to be done though. There is a need to systematically progress towards a scenario where the base stations only minimally exist in their present forms and are instead taken over by smarter, greener and nomi-nally radiating antennas with smaller form factors.

Aggarwal adds, “Mobile operators in other countries are following a safer technology which does not require structured towers on the roof tops. These mobile operators, some of which are operating in India also, follow the practice of installing small sizes low power radiating antennas on roof tops which are installed on masts. This automatically results in emission of very low radiation.”

An obvious solution is to increase the use of femto cells, pico cells and even Wi-Fi networks. “In future, we must insist for migration of the high-power

radiating antennas installed on towers to micro cells BTS with low power radiating antennas. Accordingly, these towers with high power radiating antennas must be removed progressively within next five years,” Aggarwal notes.

A need for integrated approachAfter the mobile services boom, there has been an overemphasis by telcos on cellular growth, while other network technologies have been largely neglected. In particular, there has been little attempt by telcos to leverage the vast cable TV network assets across the country. Policy makers too have equally failed to take holistic approaches towards develop-ment of various access technologies.

The same is true when it comes to various other network technologies including Wi-Fi, fiber or DSL, even though DSL is the dominant wireline broadband technology in India. In fact, with good network plan-ning, Wi-Fi mesh networks could deliver significant benefits to both consumers and service providers. That all notebooks and tablets and an increasingly large number of mobile phones have native support for Wi-Fi access makes its usage practicable.

Various wireline networks can effectively complement cellular networks in the backhaul, and a planned integration of wireline and wireless networks is indeed the way to go.

In this context, it is also time to blow the dust off the National Broadband Plan recom-mendations submitted by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) way back in December 2010. Rollout of the plan, along with a constructive government-industry dialogue, can open up novel ways of wireline-wireless integration, to contribute towards sustainability.

No other industry perhaps has as large a community as the telecom industry today, in the form of hundreds of millions of registered subscribers. Unfortunately, it has also been discredited as being among the least sustainability friendly industries.

By moving to roof-mounted, low-powered cells and access points, telcos can address public health issues and bring down their costs too


I realized, as he drove my truck out of the main part of town, that I had no idea of where he lived. We passed over the bridge, the road winding

northward, the houses flashing past us growing further apart, getting bigger. And then we were past the other houses altogether, driving through a misty forest. I was trying to decide whether to ask or be patient, when he turned abruptly onto an unpaved road. It was unmarked, barely visible among the ferns. The forest encroached on both sides, leaving the road ahead only discernible for a few meters as it twisted.

And then, after a few miles, there was some thinning of the woods, and we were suddenly in a small meadow, or was it actually a lawn? The gloom of the forest didn’t relent, the trees had their protecting shadow right up to the walls of the house that rose among them.

I don’t know what I had expected, but it definitely wasn’t this. The house was timeless, graceful, and probably a hundred years old. It was painted a soft, faded white, was three stories tall, rectangular and well proportioned. My truck was the only car in sight, I could hear the river close by, hidden in the obscurity of the forest.

If you haven’t already guessed, you just finished reading an excerpt from vampire romance novelist Stephenie Meyer’s popular work <Twilight>.

Rating systems need to adapt in the light of the environment around, without which a building would lack harmony and only be pseudo green

By Pratima H

Twilight inspired! Why not?

20 Sustainuance September 2012

COVER STORY


Shades of white, wooden floors, walls entirely replaced with glass, or removed completely to create one wide space, shadows of the cedars and a grand piano—Meyer is more than a popular author; probably a latent architect too.

For Edward Cullen, the master of the house, it may have all been very natural, but not all vampires are that conscientious or so resource-sensitive.

But wait a minute. Why are we talking vampire fic-tion in a magazine on sustainability?

It’s because there is a parallel. Isn’t it that we all humans suck something out of our planet every single second?Inspired by the Cullens?

Initiatives from around the worldIn the last few years, and for some obvious reasons, some people and even some institutions and gov-ernments have started almost itching to turn their surroundings green. Green buildings, once the hall-mark of homes that our great-grandparents lived in a matter-of-factly manner, were wiped out by words like ‘progress’, ‘advancement’, and ‘fashion.’ But they have condensed back into visibility for all the right reasons.

If you want to think of 100 percent day-lit work-spaces, greenhouse-gas neutrality, and on-site treat-ment of solid and liquid wastes, there’s something in Vancouver, B.C., Canada with the Center for Interactive Research on Sustainability.

In its neighboring country US, boasting not only recycled-content ceiling tiles and under-desk worm-composting bins but also $1 million a year (reckoned once) in savings from its green features; is California Environmental Protection Agency Headquarters, Sacramento, California, one of the greenest high-rise in the country.

Then there is the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, known very well for the fact that nearly 75 percent of the materials used here was sourced from within a 500-mile radius. Also, 50 percent of the construction waste was recycled. It’s smart enough to collect rainwater and use it in toilets, and uses solar photovoltaic cells on the roof to take care of a portion of its power needs.

And why hover only in US? Shift your radar a bit towards East and you can find buildings like CII-Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Center, Hyderabad in India. Interestingly, it is the first building outside the U.S. to earn a LEED platinum rating. The headquarters for Indian Green Building Council, it collects rainwa-ter, relies on natural lighting and makes use of solar power, to name a few features.

Sunny Mornings make Good Nights

Now and in future• At present, India’s green building footprint is 1.21 billion

sq. ft. with 1,745 buildings registered with the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC).

• An additional 105 million sq. ft. are Griha-certified buildings completed or under construction.

• India’s total built-up space is 25 billion sq. ft., and it is expected to increase to 80 billion by 2030, according to IGBC.

• Green buildings are gaining momentum and could account for 20% of all construction by 2030.

• As on September 2012, over 1,745 registered green buildings projects with a built-up area of over 1.21 billion sq. ft. are registered with IGBC, out of which 276 green building projects are certified and fully functional.

September 2012 Sustainuance 21October 2012 Sustainuance 21

One can also travel to Rajarhat, when one thinks of a near-zero energy satellite town (ZEST), or to any of Gul Panag’s homes that have started attracting a lot of attention from both media and TERI, GRIHA bodies.

In the same breath, one can utter names like the ITC Green Center, Gurgaon, where 40 percent of con-struction materials came from within 500 miles of the site (10 percent was reused from other buildings), and where the native-plant landscaping is irrigated with recycled water, while it even focuses to provide mini-mal distraction to nocturnal birds.

There are many more green-mortar sights strewn across the atlas; from the aerodynamic wonder and 40-storey skyscraper Swiss Re Tower, London, UK; the landfill-construction waste idea masterpiece Centro Internacional de Negocios, Chihuahua, Mexico; Adobe’s office that works like an irrigation system (it self-adjusts according to weather conditions) at Almaden Tower and East & West Towers, San Jose, California, US, to a building in New Zealand that spun out soundproof panels made from milk-bottle tops and a rooftop tearoom set in a garden of native plants at Conservation House, Wellington.

There’s even an airport that took off with 90 per-cent recycled steel and 100 percent recycled or sustain-able timber. It was made with the intent of harboring 70 percent of its energy from solar power and using far less water than its counterparts. Brindabella Circuit, Canberra International Airport, Canberra, Australia will certainly catch your attention when you are in the sky.

So will Shiodome Tower, Tokyo, Japan; Pacific Controls Headquarters, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and so on. The list thankfully, keeps growing.

Made from Concrete (Plans)

Green building evolution• Probably when the oil price increases of the 1970s shook us

up, it spurred some early experiments with contemporary green buildings that galvanized into something more solid towards the 1990s.

• American Institute of Architects (AIA) formed the Committee on the Environment in 1989.

• Environmental Resource Guide was published by AIA, funded by EPA in 1992.

• EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy launched the Energy Star program, also in 1992.

• The introduction of first local green building program or founding of U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC)

• The “Greening of the White House” initiative launched by Clinton Administration in 1993

• USGBC Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) version 1.0 pilot program in 1998 and then the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that included federal building sustainable performance standards in the US.

• US President Bush signed Executive Order 13423 - Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management around federal goals for sustainable design and high performance buildings in 2007, the same year that saw The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 include requirements for high performance green federal buildings.

The key factor that is driving the market for green buildings, as per some experts, also originates from the US and European companies that are setting up shops in India. These companies are the ones generating demand for certification of buildings such as offices, factories, and other commercial buildings.


COVER STORY


But beware that it’s not a green coffin!Yes, it doesn’t help much if you just paint the walls green. A coffin is a coffin even if it’s daubed in fluores-cent tints. Having a building made of green materials does not necessarily mean the job is done. Abracadabra?

Not if one pays attention to what architects like Joshua Prince-Ramus, Randolph Croxton, and Tuomas Toivonen have to say. As reportedly high-lighted by them very poign-antly, it does not serve the green purpose when a green building still makes only a diluted impact because it continues consum-ing energy in carbon-intensive ways, or entailing complicated technologies, hard-to-maintain systems, or for the simple reason of making their occupants drive long distances for work and rou-tine chores.

‘Created in isolation’ is the main stain such uber-green buildings are splashed with. Even if a building is cer-tified or constructed with green-friendly materials, the baby is out with the bath water when lifestyles being lived in them are not sustainable or when people traveling to and fro these green-scrapers emit

tonnes of carbon or when these buildings score low on Walk scores or Abogo tools.

Green is beyond solar windows and insulated pipes. It should be about something that can be taken way

forward into future. Something that is livable for years. Yes, we are almost talking in Cullen’s context here. Think of a house that will last for eternity.

A report from the National Academy of Sciences, titled Climate Change, the Indoor Environment, and Health pur-portedly argues that energy-efficient buildings can even have ill-health effects. Ventilation, energy transfer, indoor air qual-ity and concomitant changes in climate have been picked out as areas of health concerns for those inclined towards living in a green building.

To quote from some lines of a media announcement in this context: “The Institute

of Medicine report warns that the effort to counter climate change has spurred a shift to untested new materials and building retrofits that could limit and alter the air flow inside buildings.” It said this may concentrate indoor pollutants such as chemical

LEED India requirements have been copied from the US version and suffer from inadequacy; in the US a federal code exists that provides mandates on air quality, pollution and noise unlike in India

Beauty lies in the eyes of the pencil-holder


COVER STORY


emissions and tobacco smoke. Indoor dampness, poor ventilation, excessive temperatures, and emissions from building materials and equipment such as back-up power generators can all contribute to health prob-lems, the report says.

As if there was dearth of any more reasons to make people sit on the fence! The world has not exactly been scurrying for green certifications or falling over each other to make their homes green. This gives them one more reason to stay ‘indoors’.

Green buildings are good coffee-table talk. But they are not everyone’s cup of tea yet. They are not comfort-able bets. There’s something else needed, like their abil-ity of making the inhabitants feel warm and cozy.

It’s also about right skillsets, and moreJaslene Bawa, Research Services Analyst from ValueNotes has a lot up her sleeve when it comes to detailing the gaps often seen in green building approaches.

Dipping into her deep experience in covering energy

At the moment, a lot of it is more theoretical than practical, the boards should consider covering the gaps and ensure that the standards are implemented in totality” Jaslene Bawa, Research Services Analyst, ValueNotes

Building Year awarded

Built-in area (sq. ft.)

Ratingachieved

% increase in cost

Payback(years)

CII-Godrej GBC, Hyderabad 2003 20,000 Platinum 18 % 7 years

ITC Green Centre, Gurgaon 2004 1,70,000 Platinum 15 % 6 years

Wipro, Gurgaon 2005 1,75,000 Platinum 8 % 5 years

Technopolis, Kolkata 2006 7,20,000 Gold 6% 2 years

Spectral Services Consultants Office, Noida 2007 15,000 Platinum 8% 4 years

HITAM, Hyderabad 2007 78,000 Silver 2% 3 years

Kalpataru Square, Mumbai 2008 3,27,000 Platinum 2% 2 years

Suzlon Energy, Pune 2010 8,20,000 Platinum < 2% 2 years

Kohinoor Hospital, Mumbai 2010 2,30,000 Platinum < 2% 2 years

How about the money, honey?In a normal building life cycle, the operating cost would be around 80-85 percent of the capital cost while an additional one-time cost is only about eight to 10 percent. The incremental cost of constructing a green building would be five to eight per cent higher than a conventional building. But this incremental cost can get paid back within a period of two to three years.

Sou

rce: CII - IG

BC


incorporated in the system, which is kind of missing from the scene. Similarly, there are very few people with the required skill sets. Hence these two factors rank high.”

M Anand, Senior Counselor, CII - Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), concedes to all the gaps and turning points on the so-called green tracks we are trekking. He reckons the Indian scenario on green-building-related progress, “Today there is an urgent need to have adequate number of testing facilities to establish the greenness and applicability for green building products, which are project specific. This is one of the gaps and IGBC is working on it, with various leading institutions, like CEPT, IIITH, MNIT. ORNL, LBNL, etc.”

Cullen, we lack some precious skills indeed! Green-masonry is one of those. As on date, India

has over 860 IGBC-accredited Green Buildings profes-sionals, Anand tells. IGBC has robust training pro-grammes which would encourage more professionals to take up the exam and handhold the design and project teams across the country. That’s why we have already confronted the need for more green-building professionals to facilitate green building projects across the country. May be that’s why bodies like IGBC have launched the IGBC-Accredited Professional (AP) Exam.

But stepping back and looking at the bigger picture is something humans can manage, too. When Anand does that, he reflects how going green or adopting green practices is not new to India. “This has been the practice adopted by our ancestors since ages - blend the traditional architecture and ancient wisdom with modern equipment and technologies to address the present day problems, to develop a greener world.

What’s up India?1. Launch of indigenous rating systems to suit five climatic

zones of India, aligned with a national priority and rating program based on five elements of nature—panchabhutas

2. An important development in the growth of green building movement is the launch of the following Green Building Rating System, developed by IGBC, with support and involvement of all stakeholders

3. IGBC is working closely with the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), Ministry of Environment and Forest, (MoEF), town planners, development authorities and other stakeholders to promote green buildings. The buildings registered and certified by IGBC not only makes good business sense, by saving tremendous energy and water consumption, but also provide a better place for communities to live and enhance their quality of life.

4. One billion sq. ft. of building space going green in India

Size doesn’t matter, but scale does

and power sectors, she attempts to answer the uncom-fortable question: why are we still not green enough?

To start with, there are many yawning gaps in ensuring that green building concept becomes effec-tive in essence and gets all pervasive. Bawa points out, “At the moment, a lot of it is more theoretical than prac-tical, the boards should consider covering the gaps and ensure that the standards are implemented in totality.”

To explain this further, one has to get a bit visceral. The problem as always is in the little details. When we talk about all the green progress, we tend to ignore questions around self-audits, corruption in ratings, out-of-context criteria or skill sets.

Bawa notes, “Issues like self-audits need to be


COVER STORY


That, he explains is what spurred the Green Building movement in India. IGBC was formed by CII in 2001.

Well, till about 2001, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a well-known US rating system for green buildings) for people in India, was a county in the United Kingdom, says Anand. “Today, LEED India is recognized as one of the most popular green building rating system in the country and across the world.” Many milestones dot the graph: the signing of first MoU between IGBC and USGBC in the year 2001, the launch of LEED India in 2007 to suit the Indian context, and that align with national priorities and the recent launch of ‘LEED 2011 for India’.

Indoor air quality is precious

Ratings, be it LEED or its Indian counterpart Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA), influence the adoption and penetration of green

buildings a lot. However, these rating systems are often the dart board for some sharp questions.

For instance, does indoor environment design, which has been insinuated strongly by the National Academy of Sciences, come up rightly in the pecking order between water efficiency, energy management, cooling system, and heating system, among others?

No it does not, Bawa tells, “According to IGBC, indoor environment quality (IEQ) typically covers indoor air quality (IAQ) with a focus on airborne contaminants, as well as other health, safety, and comfort issues such as aesthetics, potable water surveillance, ergonomics, acoustics, lighting, and electromagnetic frequency levels.”

If one views it from the Indian perspective, IEQ credits are one of the most important focus points of LEED. However, India is affected by numerous pollu-tion factors in the indoor environment. In addition to

Feature Conventional building Green building

Electrical demand (1 mn sq. ft. ) 8 - 10 MW 6 - 7 MW

Lighting power density (W/sq. ft.) 1.5 - 2.0 0.6 - 0.8

Equipment power density (W/sq. ft.) 2.5 - 3.0 1.5 - 2.0

Energy saved in green buildingsThe following table illustrates how green buildings do differently and result in energy and environmental benefits:

Few of the green buildings that have been in operation for five years have been monitored for operational savings. The following table illustrates the energy savings achieved in some of the early certified green buildings.

The above table demonstrates that green buildings would go a long way in conserving energy. Green buildings can also play a catalytic role in reducing the sanctioned demand (in kVA) for individual buildings and peak power demand. This would result in significant reduction in burning fossil fuels in power plants and its associated carbon emissions.

Feature Built-up area (sq. ft.)

Normalbuilding(kWh)

Actualbuilding(kWh)

% Reduction

Annualenergysavings(in Rs lakh)

Wipro, Gurgaon 1,75,000 48,00,000 31,00,000 40% 102

ITC Green Centre Gurgaon 1,70,000 35,00,000 20,00,000 45% 90

CII Godrej GBC 20,000 3,50,000 1,30,000 63% 9


this, policies on protection of indoor as well as outdoor environment quality in relation to air quality, noise, temperature and odor are grossly missing.

LEED India, as she suggests, should have laid out clear guidelines and emphasized on the control of dust, odor, and sound pollution by mentioning pre-requisites during construction.

“For example, around 80 percent of the construction projects generate demolition or construction noise, often in densely populated and occupied areas. Dust generated leads to lung and other respiratory problems coupled with odors that are repulsive to humans.”

It turns out that LEED India faces some valid question-marks when it comes to having specific and clear guidelines in place for controlling, or as a matter of fact, even addressing these issues.

Bawa points how LEED India requirements that have been copied from the standards of the USGBC LEED thereby suffer from inadequate Indianized norms, because in the US a federal code exists that provides mandates on air quality, pollution and noise unlike in India.

Anand from IGBC is in cognizance of the issue. The IEQ category is one of the five environmental categories created to provide comfort, well-being, and enhanced productivity of occupants, he explains. “The IGBC’s IEQ category addresses design and construction guidelines, especially IAQ, thermal and visual com-forts for all the occupants across the different types of buildings. IAQ ensures to provide enhanced fresh air for indoors and seeks to eliminate/reduce volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other air impurities such as microbial contaminants.”

GRIHA-PRAVESH:1. A rating system need was felt to bridge the demand for

the non-air conditioned and the partly air conditioned buildings. For this purpose, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) developed a system known as Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (Griha).

2. The system was built to address the national concerns such as the resource shortages that the power and water sectors faced, coupled with a rapidly eroding biodiversity.

3. The stress was laid on solar systems that would optimize indoor thermal comfort through temperature control that covers heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, and would resort to refrigeration based air-conditioning only if extreme discomfort was felt by the occupants.

4. This system has been developed mainly for the largest energy consuming segment, i.e. commercial and residential buildings (new construction).

5. Gradually, similar standards will be built to address the requirements of other types of buildings such as existing buildings and industrial buildings.

Quite a jigsaw but not a puzzle

A building tick-marked as green makes only a diluted impact if its occupants employ carbon-intensive ways, such as driving long distances to and fro work


COVER STORY


Another factor that is often relegated to corners of the mind is the physical and psychological between archi-tect- or design-level rating administration to builder- or operator- or tenant-level rating implementation.

Commenting on this issue Bawa picks out the builder-level impact, “The builder has control over the whole system. He may enforce system requirements through a sales agreement or tenant lease, thereby influencing its design and/or construction. However, the tenant may have an authority only for the space he occupies.”

Tick-mark approach to rating?Cullen lived alone, beyond the precincts of community life, making him free of need to adhere to ratings and certifications.

In the world of humans, however, ratings become a necessity. When your boundaries affect other people’s spaces, ratings have their own weights to serve.

There are also costs and processes associated with ratings. Hopefully, in future, ratings would become less complex, less expensive, maybe.

Bawa supports the hope, albeit with some truth to confront, “The ratings at the moment consider a number of parameters, and many of them are new to the builders and designers who in turn are grappling in the dark.”

She cites how energy efficiency is not a fully devel-oped concept, “We need to establish guidelines for the same and make it more practical. They need to point out how it is going to help an individual and what will be the end savings in terms of cost.”

At the moment, she cautions, it is more of a PR activ-ity, but eventually spreading awareness among the

“Today, there is an urgent need to have adequate number of testing facilities to establish the greenness and applicability for green building products, which are project specific” M Anand, Senior Counselor, CII - Indian Green Building Council

masses will help achieve LEED’s purpose.One more point that needs to be amplified here is

whether India and US are the same baskets, and hence whether LEED can differentiate between apples and oranges.

Ask Jaslene if there are any similarities in LEED US and India, and she points out how LEED requires a development density of 60,000 per acre, which is the exact standard used by US. Similarly, there have to be standards for testing contaminated soil and public transportation access. “However, unlike the US water

Skyline is not always the bottom-line


efficiency credits, we do not have any prerequisite requirements. The only Indianised standard is the energy performance standard which is applicable to large buildings.”

LEED is ten years old, but is facing criticisms in India on whether actual energy measurement and energy savings are bigger motivators or certification is merely about a green check list.

The core 69-point LEED rating system addresses energy and water use, indoor air quality, materials, sit-ing, and innovation and design. If one looks at LEED US ratings, the actual numbers of buildings that are granted a LEED certificate are relatively fewer compared to the ones that have applied for. The reason being they follow the ratings very stringently and leave no loopholes. For example, they have most of the laws and mandates in place for the factors considered in the IEQs unlike India.

Hence, while issuing a rating, if a building does not have a particular aspect in place; the certificate is rejected. “In India, we are mostly tick marking against a check list merely to comply with the standards. But these standards are not really plausible. They have not been adapted to the Indian setting; they don’t work as they are supposed to.” Bawa contends.

Rules, regulations and whips work for many rea-sons. Are carrots for rabbits? It is always a good idea to inject more compliance in the system, but how about incentivizing things?

Bawa agrees, “We definitely need to incentivize the ratings. Energy efficiency is still not largely incen-tivized in India.” However, some kinds of incentives are made available under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Sources schemes, she points out.

Incentivizing will help the builders and designers take up the projects more seriously compared to just complying. For instance, if the government authorities provide a tax rebate to builders who help achieve eight to 10 percent energy savings, it may egg builders to take the concept of energy efficiency more seriously and implement it in totality. She sketches an analogy with SEZs to explain how government incentives boosted the level of interest among industrialists to set up shops in SEZ regions, simultaneously achieving the govern-ment’s aim of developing the region.

Cullen, the super natural being that he was, may not have needed the force of compliance or the lure of an incentive to build his green castle.

Compliances and incentives are needed though to guide the lesser mortals—humans! And of course, the parameters should be dynamic enough to be reflective of the surroundings. Given a suitable context, Cullens’ habitat can be a benchmark!

Criteria 2001 Till date*

1 CEOs and senior people involved 50 10,000

2 No. of professionals trained on green building concepts 10 17,000

3 No. of IGBC green buildings registered 0 1,745

4 Built-up area (sq. ft.) 0 1.21 billion

5 Green building products and equipment 5 120

6 IGBC membership 0 1,315

7 IGBC local chapters 0 13

8 IGBC AP 0 863

How India has progressedThe following table illustrates the steady growth of green buildings in India

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September 2012 Sustainuance 31

Building Design Orient building to allow optimum sunlight and ventilation

Envelope High performance walls, roofs, like fly ash bricks for walls, over deck insulation.

Glass High performance glass – double glazed units, low e Glass

Appliances BEE star rated equipment and appliances – air conditioners, refrigerators and geysers.

Lighting Systems Energy efficient lamps and luminaries – T5, CFL, LED, high frequency electronic ballast.

Renewable energy sources Solar photovoltaic, solar water heaters, biogas

Energy Monitoring Energy meters and sub meters to measure, monitor and sustain building performance

Water Fixtures Use ultra-low and low flow flush water fixtures –dual flush systems, high flush 4-6 LPF/low flush 1.5-2 LPF, water less urinals

Water Management Provide rain water harvesting / storage structures

Sourcing of Building Materials Treat 100% of waste water onsite

Certified Wood Use water meters to monitor the consumption of treated grey water, irrigation water, rainwater reuse, domestic hot water

Sustainable Site measures

Use eco-friendly building materials and try to source materials that are locally manufactured (within 400 km) from project site

Transportation Use wood certified by local forestry or rapidly renewable materials (plantations that can completely replenish within 10 years) for all wooden products and furniture

Landscaping Retain and reuse fertile top soil during construction for landscaping, post-occupancy

Irrigation efficiency Maximize the vegetated open space in the building

Interior Finishing Materials

Use alternate fuel vehicles such as electric cars for local conveyance and encourage car/van pooling and public transport

Optimise ventilation & day lighting Reuse treated waste water for landscaping

Views for occupants Use drought tolerant and native species for landscape to reduce irrigation requirement

Use drought tolerant and native species for landscape to reduce irrigation requirement

Use drip and sprinkler irrigation systems for enhanced water efficiency

Irrigation efficiency Use NO or low volatile organic compound (VOC) materials such as paints, adhesives, sealants and coatings

Interior Finishing Materials Design openings to enhance cross ventilation

Optimise ventilation & day lighting Ensure maximum daylight into all occupied spaces

Ensure maximum daylight into all occupied spaces

Design interior layouts that would provide a better connectivity to the occupants with the external world

Views for occupants Design interior layouts that would provide a better connectivity to the occupants with the external world

Some salient green building features

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Bayer’s Eco Commercial Building: A net positive buildingBayer’s Eco-commercial Building located at Noida has been awarded with the prestigious LEED-India Platinum rating by IGBC.

It is the first green building in the country that has installed renewable energy systems to cater to 100% of its energy requirement. The two-story building with around 900 sq. m. of floor area was designed and optimized based on comprehensive computer simulation.

Some of the green building features include use of high performance envelope, energy efficient air-conditioning and lighting systems, local materials and 100% onsite treatment of waste water.

Viswa Syamalam, ChennaiViswa Syamalam has exceedingly complied with all the prerequisites of making it a world class green home. For example, with rain water harvesting, recycling and adopting conservation methods and practices, Viswa Syamalam is a water positive home with least carbon foot print.

100% smart lighting: This ecofriendly home uses natural day light, with the result that from sunrise to sunset not a single electric lamp is required to be used in any part of the home

Further, Suzlon One Earth, Turbo Energy, Delta Power and other green buildings have installed technologies like solar PV and BIPV that harness solar power, which has become the integral part of the building envelope.

IGBC Green Homes Rating System is receiving increased acceptance. Over 560 green homes projects amounting to over 513 million sq. ft. of green building footprint are registered. IGBC Green Townships Rating System is also receiving encouraging response from the stakeholders. At least 20 projects amounting to over 78 million sq. ft. are registered under this rating system.

Environmental benefit categoryAverage benefits /million sq. ft.

CO2 reduction 12,000 tons

Energy savings 15,000 MWh

Water savings 45,000 kl

Construction waste diverted from landfills 450 tons


INTERVIEW


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OPTIMUM LAND USAGE SHOULD BE PRIMARY CRITERION FOR

GREEN BUILDINGS

Among the best known architects in the country, Hafeez Contractor undoubt-edly has some of India’s best known

commercial building designs to his credit. He has also been noted and cited as a member of the Bombay Heritage Committee and New Delhi Lutyens Bungalow Zone Review Com-mittee. Known for having designed the tallest building in India, the Imperial Towers. Con-tractor has famously been quoted in the media as calling green buildings a joke in India. In a detailed interaction with Shashwat DC and Neha Kumari, he gets candid on why he still stands by what he said.

You have called green buildings a joke in India. What prompted you to say so?

When and in what context I said so is very important. I said the manner in which we are giving recognition to green buildings is not correct. There are much more important perspectives than just the way green buildings are looked at. Today, how do we term a building as green? We just take into consideration that the energy is conserved. And only on this aspect or other such things, like the buildings are not getting heated, air conditioning usage is less, or material used in the offices is reusable, we term them as green buildings. What I am saying is that there is much more to add to the definition of a green building.


What then is the real problem with the concept of green building in India?

Today our population is bursting. We are going to be among the countries that are going to have more popu-lation in urban areas. Everyone is wasting more food every day, everyone is consuming more energy every day, and everyone needs more space. The demands for housing, for space and for real estate are increasing and so are the demands for building materials. So what I’m saying is that conserving ground space, and conserv-ing the land is most important.

The way we are not giving enough importance to conserving land is a concern. Say, today I take a 10-acre plot which is a farm land or something similar to that and make a bungalow there. I use cycled material, get platinum rated material and take care of all such aspects. But then, the land has been wasted. And why I say so is because today how you are rating the land is important. If it is Mumbai, you have to see how much population is supposed to come here. If I make a bungalow with ground and upper floors, to me it is not a green building. The farm land will get converted into an urban space [without contributing to the city’s sustainability]. That’s why I’m saying that the green building [definition] is not enough.

So are you saying that India can’t really stand on the concept of green buildings, con-sidering the increasing population and infinite demands of people?

Let me tell you. It’s a good start and it is doing well. It has started making many people conscious about the making of a glass building with green elements added to it. My only concern is that whatever we are doing as of now is not enough in the context of a country like India. This is not the case for the US or Germany and other such developed countries. There they have cities with so many buildings that are unoccupied. The population density ratio in India is very different. Today, out of our 1.15 billion people, 70 percent don’t even have proper housing. What are we doing? We are just borrowing farm land and making it an urban land. Now here, what floor area ratio (FAR) are we getting? Are we using enough in order to meet what should be a green building criterion of “I use my land to the most proper extent?”

To illustrate the point, let me tell you about my fam-ily. I come from a very poor family. My father died early. My mother was a school teacher. How she used to cook? She would get some vegetables, cook them and what-ever bits and pieces were remaining, she would prepare a new dish out of it. So what I’m trying to say is it is like sugarcane juice (using all the elements). Are we doing that with the land? Now, just imagine, very soon you will realise that there is no land left. Then what will you do? Then you’ll make cities that are 100 km to 200

km wide. Then you’ll make infrastructures that much. Where is your green building?

That’s why I’m saying the existing parameters are not enough! Optimum usage of land should be the main criteria and this should be applied over a wide range.

What according to you would be the ideal solution for green and green buildings?

See, for India, a green building should be evaluated not just from a building perspective. How you are using the land and other such aspects are also to be involved. Suppose I’m next to a station or I’m next to a highway, my land should be utilised in such a way that more peo-ple can benefit from it faster.

We must understand why we are doing this. We want to conserve the land, we want to conserve the energy, and we want to conserve everything. It is not just about air conditioning. That is not enough!

Ask around within your family. Ask your father or grandfather how many shirts he had? And how many shirts you have now? Earlier, people wouldn’t waste even a bit of food, but look around today: you will find food thrown away here and there. Who is cooking and who is taking so much of effort for everything?

The same applies to anything and everything. We will not have enough land to house our people in future. We have to change our urban laws on how

we are going to design our cities. We have to think about green cities. Green does not just mean what is green in a given place.

(It is more of the impact that you have on the people and everything around.)

The media wants to pick up only those words that are interesting and will make news. They don’t write the context in which it was said. Now if you are considering only select aspects of green building and keep talking about it, without enhancing and ana-lysing other aspects, it is a joke! This is what I had meant.

What do you feel about the kind of fascination that we have in India for LEED? What is your view on these kinds of certifications?

Let’s be very clear. LEED is a global organisation. They have a great support. I wish they take up this course and go forward as it will be much better.

You have been a proponent of vastu and ancient Indian wisdom. Where do you think we can draw essence from it and do better?

Again, I would say vastu has to be understood properly. Now, what is vastu first of all? Let’s go 100 years back. At that time there was no municipality; our society was constituted of small villages. There were 20-30 houses in a colony with 1,000 to 2,000 people in it. Cities were only a few. Now, for any system to work, people have to abide by that. How to achieve that? Well, religion is

“We have to change our urban laws. We have to think about green cities, not just focus on what is green in a given place”


INTERVIEW

something that also teaches you how to do things. Remembering the Almighty is one part and is very important, but it also teaches what to do, when to do, what to avoid and other such things. So, it says you will dispose off in a particular way when somebody dies. That is a certain form of vastu. Then there is some kind of vastu at the time of marriages too. So basically, for anything to eve-rything, there is a certain kind of vastu. And so for buildings, there is a vastu too! Now let us consider this. What does it say? Put your building on west and south. Keep your east and north more open. Why? It will bring more light to your life as sun rises in the east. For most of the India, south west is the crease. So when any room or anything is on south west, you will have more breezes.

So I’m not saying we will follow vastu. First under-stand, and then follow it.

Do you think green buildings can also be beautiful, and aesthethic rather than just focussing on the utilitarian aspect?

Of course! I am not against green buildings. But I’m saying it’s not enough. I have myself designed so many green buildings. We have so many projects going on for green buildings. But I’m stressing again and again that the way we are giving importance to green build-ing needs to be corrected. One should think and realise

that there is more to be done. There is just so much more to be done.

How many people are staying in slums? Is it right? Our FAR is not at all green! It is black! So many want to stay but you don’t let them stay. All this should be taken into consideration before deciding what is green and what is black. I qualify for a four or five-floor building and on the same plot I put around 20 floors, house more people. Now, is it just because you are doing four-five floors that you are not green? No, you don’t have a grading for that. That is where the difference lies.

We have scope. We are doing so much for our cities. Are we doing it in the right manner? From green build-ing, we have to get qualified for a green city and then only the green building movement is doing its duty.

What about the corporate offices? What do you feel about them? Urban housing is there, but cor-porate offices waste a lot of land and energy.

Same thing. You should not waste your land. You should make optimum use of land. There is an infinite land quantum. Suddenly you will find that, ‘my God, so much of land is wasted!’ If you are using the cam-pus to its potential then you are right, but everyone wants to make only two-three floors. Those are not green campuses.

“The way we are giving importance to green building needs to be corrected. One should think and realise our FAR is not at all green! It is black!”


A million-footfall opportunityStores can make big cuts in water and energy expenses using plug-on techs and

in the process also give out green messages to millions of their customers

By Niranjan Khatri

Embracing the environment and creating aware-ness to protect it is not just a fad anymore but an urgent, burning issue. And no longer is it a

romantic movement begun by the hippies in the late sixties and restricted to a few ideological groups, but a worldwide concern. Each industry now understands that resources available in Nature are finite. And so across sectors, there is an increasing consciousness to be sustainable.

How can our retail sector too reduce carbon foot-print significantly?

Sky is the limit when it comes to going green, and retailers can be vital agents in bringing about an impact in their own organizations and to their custom-ers as well.

Retailers can begin by constructing a green build-ing. The moment you say ‘green building,’ you are addressing the energy and atmospheric issues and the

water footprint of the building, and also looking at your material content and seeing how green it is. You employ your mind to innovate. Considering the fact that the retail sector gets millions of footfalls every day, how do they use the opportunity to not only drive change within the store buildings but also create an impact on the customers? This could be partly done by putting up messages in different parts of their stores.

Store owners could also look at allowing their cus-tomers to dispose the packaging of the items they buy, at the store itself. This way it can be taken for recycling from the shop. Sometimes the recycling is done, but it is not up to the standards. There is a need to strategize and create new designs whereby such waste is treated as wealth and recycled intelligently. If a retail chain exhibits appropriate communication as to what hap-pens to the waste then perhaps the customers will be more willing to adopt such methods.


COVER STORY

Water management opportunitiesIf it is a new building, then constructing a ‘green build-ing’ is fairly by the book. But what about the existing buildings that now need to go green? There are many ideas that can be implemented in such cases. Plug-on technologies go a long way in reducing energy and water intensity. For example, stores and malls can wean themselves away from sensor-based urinals to waterless urinals. In sensor-based urinals, a certain amount of water goes down the drain when used. This often is treated water which is not required for ‘C’ cat-egory need. Using ‘A’ category water for ‘C’ category needs doesn’t make sense when the city doesn’t get enough water to drink.

Usually the water flow rate in the taps in the wash basins is as high as six to eight liters per minute. Using easily available plug-on technology, this can be effortlessly brought down to two liters per minute. What is used is a strainer shaped object that allows the water to spray out instead of flow continuously. You can’t tell hundreds of people to turn the tap slowly so by design intent one can reduce the consumption of water. The objective is to embed sustain-ability into every process so that others can see it without being told so.

Departmental stores must put up a sewage treatment plant and reuse that water for air condition-ing and horticulture if they have that and move away from supply-side management to demand-side management. By doing so, the reli-ance on the municipality is also reduced greatly.

Water harvesting on the store roof tops is feasible for existing stores because they have number of pipes carrying the rain water into the drains, depending on the size of the building. It isn’t too expensive to harvest rain water because most of the work is already done. It is just that you need to ensure that the rooftop water goes into your recharge pits for which you need to make pits and there is a particular methodology of doing that. There is enough information on this and quite a few water harvest-ers are available today. This is something that can be executed without any trouble.

Energy conservation potentialIf a retailer is looking at saving energy then a profes-sional must do an audit of the energy profile of the store or building and then he can use the green build-ing principles to reduce energy consumption. Also, if stores bring in as much daylight as possible by using glass innovatively, this has a direct impact on the energy levels. E-glass which brings in the light but keeps the heat out is an ideal product for this appli-cation. As there are five types of climatic conditions here, an energy auditor can inform you which part of

Bringing in as much daylight as possible by using glass innovatively can have a direct impact on energy levels. E-glass which brings in the light but keeps the heat out may be used intelligently

the store is receiving too much heat at what time, then accordingly change the glass to e-glass only in those areas and keep certain parts of the building the same.

You have to be intelligent in using e-glass because it is a bit expensive. Its use can have a cascading impact on your air conditioning because if your heat load is less, then your air conditioning needs also become lower. On lighting, there are huge opportunities. If it is a new building, the design can be in such a way that you maximize the intake of day light. This not only reduces reliance on artificial light but also adds to the bottom line.

Many retailers are still using incandescent or halo-gen lights – infamous for creating heat and consuming high energy. Although LED lights are slightly more expensive than CFL light, it is important that one does a lifecycle analysis and cost study. For example, I am paying Rs 100 for this light but within three years I recover this money and after that it is all savings for me. The advantage of LED light is that it is a cold light. A normal bulb is hot when in use, so you won’t

even be able to touch it. But LED lights are cold even when lit, so their usage brings down the energy consumption because they are not a heat source.

Therefore if LED lights are used by design intent at the project stage then instead of installing a big air conditioner, perhaps only a smaller one will be required. Holistic thinking has to be brought about in the entire system while looking at the operations.

It is a known fact that forty-seven percent of heat gain is from the roof tops. This can be reduced drastically by using high albedo paint which is a reflective paint; it is a big saving on the air conditioning as well.

The biggest challenge that many face is the cost of these items. When we were construct-ing ITC Green Centre, we had to import the paint. But today things have changed and it

is available in many cities. But many feel that going green increases their expenses. So there are alternative plans as well. There are heaps of construction debris lying at the sites and countless white broken tiles. The broken tiles can be bought from the tile business-men and can be easily integrated on your roof tops, it is quite inexpensive. That again helps in cooling because it reflects the heat back in the atmosphere. And if someone doesn’t want to spend even that much then the simplest thing to do is to purchase around ten gunny bags and place those on roof tops and that will also effectively reflect the heat and keep it cool during summers.

If retail chains have the luxury of space, they can convert their wet garbage into manure by using a tech-nology called organic waste converter (OWC). They could even be selling that manure. Remember, nothing is waste; waste is only wealth in the wrong place.

Niranjan Khatri is General Manager, Welcomen-viron Initiatives, ITC WelcomGroup


COVER

How India’s first Griha green home happened – and the road ahead for others

By Prasanto K Roy

A Personal Journey


Our small planet looks a brilliant blue from outer space. Closer home, green is the favorite color – and the most politically correct today.

So much so that there’s an explosion of “greenwash-ing” – green PR and advertising that promotes a perception of being green, whatever the reality.

Strangely, India’s housing sector hasn’t been bitten even by the greenwashing bug, let alone by a real green bug. Green doesn’t matter in housing in India. Very few real-estate developers know – or care – what green means.

So when I started hunting for a green-rated house or apartment in Gurgaon in 2005, it was no surprise that not a single developer had anything to offer. DLF, Unitech, Vatika… they all spoke about green lawns and trees. DLF officials even spoke glowingly about a giant green golf course in Gurgaon – the ultimate crime in a water-starved land.

To cut a long story short, there would be no green housing in India for the next seven years.

Meanwhile, commercial buildings were going green. Not by the hundreds, but by the dozens. Right next door to our office, in Gurgaon’s sector 32, was ITC’s Green Center, its Hotels Division headquarters. For several years, it was the world’s largest Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum-rated green building.

Green Center was impressive – at its time, at the cutting edge of building tech. I walked past it many times, and walked around in it several times, with my friend Niranjan Khatri, ITC Hotels’ passionate green evangelist. I asked, why can’t I do this in a small house? The answer seemed to be: it’s overkill, and way too expensive, to go all the way with a rating. LEED experts and architects said the same thing.

A few years down the line, TERI introduced Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (Griha), a competing system that was more tuned to India. The cost wasn’t very different from LEED. Aimed at commercial buildings, it cost Rs 5 lakh just for the registration.

In early 2011, I re-discovered an old friend from my school. Architect Nilanjan Bhowal had specialized in green buildings for his post-graduation, and was already working on a green building. We decided to go ahead and collaborate on a house with a Griha

certification – and we’d call it Green One. We had a first meeting with TERI.

A few days later, on an NDTV gadget awards jury panel, I found that my fellow juror, actor Gul Panag, was already building a house with green features. But she wasn’t going in for a green rating, thanks to the cost and complexity. So the three of us went to TERI – Gul and her husband Rishi Attari came in straight from a Jet Airways flight from Milan that Rishi was piloting – and asked how they could simplify and make Griha more suited to homes. As it turned out, TERI had been thinking of the same thing, and was working on a simplified version.

In two months, TERI launched Svagriha. Costing one-fifth of a regular Griha process, it would lead to a full-fledged Griha certification, while allowing for a simpler self-documentation process with fewer external audits.

Nilanjan and I promptly registered Green One, my future home in South Delhi’s CR Park (built to replace a 30-year-old house), as TERI’s Svagriha pilot project in June 2011. It would be the first individual home in India to register for a Griha rating. Gul and Rishi filed their papers soon afterward, their upcoming weekend home in a Mulshi farmland, near Pune, becoming India’s second home to apply for Griha registration.

Green One will use AAC (autoclaved aerated concrete) on the outer walls, and fly-ash bricks on the inner walls

There’s recycled material used throughout Green One, such as this mezzanine structure which will be made completely with recycled metal

Much of the steel in Green One comes from reclaimed, recycled steel rods and bars

Removing and replanting a fully-grow tree requires a lot of skilled hands, and careful planning and execution


COVER

Over the past year, I’ve spoken and written about green homes, and faced questions, curiosity, interest, skepticism. In the sidebar is a list of the top questions.

And in the year since those two registrations in mid-2011, about ten more homes have registered for Svagriha, versus about 200 commercial buildings. That’s way too few for a billion-people country. But

What’s a green home?

A home that has the least impact on the environment through its life, from construction to demolition. It uses sustainable materials, less energy, recycles water. Ideally, it should be certified as green, by TERI or LEED.

Why green? How does it help?

You save energy and water. You have better living conditions—with more natural light and cleaner, better air. You have the satisfaction of knowing that your house has had minimal environment impact. (Bonus: it’s different. You stand out from the crowd.)

What does it cost?

About 5 percent more than a regular home, depending on how many features, and how much automation, you’d put in. (That’s less than the premium you’d spend on fancy bath-room fitting and finishing and Italian marble.) Plus the rating cost: about Rs 1 lakh for a home, under Svagriha.

Can I recover the spend?

You get back some of it in energy cost savings, and others in softer benefits - like having water when your neighbors run out of it. (Do people ask if they can recover the spend on Italian marble or fancy fittings?)

Why a rating?

For validation that you have a true green home, and not just one with a few features. Sort of like why there are exams and other certifications. If you’re buying from a real-estate developer, it helps you screen the fake, greenwashed claims from a true green building. And there may be concessions for green ratings, now or in the future.

What do GRIHA or LEED evaluate?

They give you points on over thirty parameters, such as materials used, energy consumed, lighting, and water conservation. Based on the total score, you can get one to five stars (Griha) or a platinum, gold, etc (LEED).

Can I do without a rating?

Yes. You can simply take the detailed Griha guidelines as a reference and choose what you can or want to follow, out of it. You’ll still get those specific benefits – lower energy costs, for instance.

Can I do anything with an existing home?

Yes – even if you can’t change its basic design, construction or materials, you can do quite a bit. For instance, cut energy use: use reflective paint to keep your house cool, move to low-power lighting, find and fix energy leakages.

with most of those registrations happening in 2012, the green home movement is beginning to pick up steam.

Prasanto K Roy, editorial advisor at CyberMedia, is building India’s first Griha green home. Twitter: @prasanto

The Green Home FAQ


“Everything about what we buy and why is set to change” is the tagline of this book. Ethical

shopping is one way to support the ecologi-cal system or intelligence. Daniel Goleman, the author, has highlighted the importance of ecologically intelligent shopping.

The book says that while shopping, the background of a product, from its manufacturing process till its sales, should be transparent to the consumers. The buyers should be aware of its impact on the environment. This transparency has been coined as Radical Transparency. Goleman has stressed upon the malpractices of the corporate world whose impact can be seen on environmental, social, geographical and biological spheres.

The author has given in-depth informa-tion about the health issues of workers and impact on environment by the manufacturing process of the factories. Many examples of the factories that were forced to go green and eco-friendly due to consumer pressure through social media sites have been mentioned. The book chases the personal journey of the author and various remedies to boost the ecologi-cal intelligence of shoppers while buying the products.

According to the author, the consumers should have as much knowledge of the products as possible. It should answer the following questions: Is the product sustain-able? Is it chemical free? Some important and reliable information regarding the products can be gained from social sites like Twitter or Facebook.

One such prominent site especially designed for the shoppers is GoodGuide, which plays an eminent role in guiding the consumers by providing full report of the product. Social media platforms can guide consumers; they have the strength to change the brand loyalty of the consumer, which can affect the future prospects of

Ecological IntelligenceBy Daniel Goleman

The author urges buyers to ensure that not just the product but also the process that brought it out is eco-friendly. Sailee K reviews the book.

a company. The social sites have been the fastest marketing source delivering infor-mation to millions of people worldwide.

The site, developed by O’Rourke’s, is a place where in-depth information is provided to consumers by the companies themselves. It has the facility of feedback or suggestions to the companies by con-sumers which is important for companies’ progress. One such example given by the writer is the community of mothers on the site which gives good or bad reviews of the baby products.

Goleman asserts that consumers have taken the issue of green environment seriously. The labelling of ‘eco-friendly’ and ‘green product’ attracts consumers and they turn towards such products. This has been the trend of the companies to attract more and more sales and create major brand loyalty. Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been designed to give the data base information of the company and the impact of its functions on environment, health of workers and consumers.

The author has briefly discussed the remedies undertaken by some organiza-tions and companies like Timberland or Coca-Cola and many others who try to contribute towards efficient use of energy and resources so that they can earn the confidence of their consumers.

The book tries to cover all the economic fields and products, from the t-shirts we wear to the oils and the transport system used for selling the products. The writer has tried to give maximum details of the ill-effects the ecology faces in day-to-day life.

The highlight of the book is the importance of shoppers to be aware and knowledgeable. It asserts that only ethical shopping will not serve the planet. The consumers should also be aware of the manufacturing process and disposal of the products they choose.


BOOK SHELF

home in IndiaGreen comes

A photo-feature on some of the greenest buildings in India.

With the global awareness about going Green, almost all sectors, like transport, manufacturing, media or retail, are adopting sustainable practices in India. Likewise,

the concept of sustainable architecture is also catching up fast with builders and designers.

Due to its healthy features and long term savings, many of the commercial and corporate buildings are going green - be it for the sake of environment or for creating a good image in the corporate world. These buildings ensure efficient use of available materials and ecological balance in the surrounding environment.

Green spaces have allowed 14 to 16 percent rise in productivity. Besides, it also minimizes the operational cost of the building, con-sumes less water, resources and energy and helps to lower carbon footprint which certifies the building as being more environmen-tally responsible.

And if you thought green buildings would only serve ecological purpose, but actually look simple and boring, you are in for a sur-prise. Architects are coming up with astounding building designs and models that look ravishing as well as are environment-friendly. Have a look at the beautiful green buildings – some of which are completed and already garnering praise.

HYDERABAD

CII-Sohrabji Godrej Green Business centerThis was the first building to receive the platinum certification outside US and also first in India, in 2003. It is designed in a way as to collect rain water, make use of the natural lighting and the solar power. The result - conservation of energy by 55 percent, compared to the other conventional buildings.

44 Sustainuance June 2012

COVER STORY


PUNE

Suzlon global headquarters ‘One Earth’The building received the Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) Platinum award for its new corporate headquarters in Pune. Constructed on an area of 41,000 square meters (10.13 acres), it has a capacity to house 2,300 people. The award winning structure focuses on key areas such as human and environmental health; sustainable site development; efficient water; energy and waste methods, materials and resource selection; and indoor environmental quality and innovation. This made it possible to build the huge facility at a much lower cost compared to other facilities of similar size.

CHENNAI

Viswa Syamalam Viswa Syamalam, a house in Madipakkam, is one of only two individual homes in the country to have received a green rating. It was awarded platinum rating in 2009. Some of the interesting features of the home are that it boasts of least carbon foot print and lowest energy loads and consumption Utilisation of renewable energy. It also has the lowest operating and maintenance cost with positive life-cycle benefits, as well as 100% self-sufficiency in water. The house also has excellent ventilation for round-the clock freshness in the entire premises and to ensure that whenever ambient is less than 28°C there is no need to turn on air-conditioners.

June 2012 Sustainuance 45October 2012 Sustainuance 45

PHOTO-FEATURE

KOLKATA

Vedic Village Eco-HomesVedic Village is a concept at Rajarhat in Kolkata that sprawls some 150 acres of green fields, fertile farmlands, sparkling lakes, coconut groves etc. and also boasts of migratory birds, plants, butterflies, squirrels. Some villas here are uniquely designed around landscaped lakes for making you feel close to nature, with the design incorporating unique eco-friendly features. The Eco Homes with grass-sloped roofs protects the home from summer heat and winter chill.

LADAKH

The Druk White Lotus SchoolSituated 3,500 meters above sea level, this modest school is regarded as a live example of sustainable, green, cost effective building development. The building has received the Best Asian Building, Best Education Building and Best Green Building awards. Built with traditional materials such as locally excavated stone, mud bricks, timber and grass; it combines the best of traditional Ladakh architecture with 21st century engineering excellence.


COVER STORY


CHENNAI

ITC Grand CholaSouth India’s largest super-premium integrated luxury hotel complex, ITC Grand Chola, has earned the title of world’s largest LEED Platinum rated green hotel. All hotels of the ITC group implement a carbon positive, water positive and solid waste recycling positive status to ensure that a guest’s stay at any of its luxury hotels contributes to a lower carbon footprint. The LEED Platinum rating is recognition of ITC Grand Chola’s commitment to perform to the highest standards of energy, water and waste efficiency and ITC Hotels’ commitment to continue to provide inspiration to the Green Building movement in India.


PHOTO-FEATURE

KOLKATA

ONGC ONGC, one of the largest PSUs in India, assigned renowned architect to design its major office building in Kolkata. The idea was to create an energy-efficient, green, intelligent and barrier-free office building (in around 32,000 square metres) at Rajarhat in Kolkata at an investment of approximately Rs. 228 Crore. The new complex aspires to secure a ‘Platinum’ rating from the United States Green Building Council, to be the first such building in West Bengal.


COVER STORY


TRIVANDRUM

Infosys Campus Designed by Hafeez Contractor, the Infosys campus resembles a coconut frond when seen from the air. It looks like a ship when seen from the ground. The building has received LEED certification. The building has not been appreciated from an utilitarian perspective but also from an aesthetic purpose. Employees working in this campus have endorsed the same views in many a surveys.


PHOTO-FEATURE

Read more at: www.sustainuance.com

WALL POST

Hom

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we

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Facts StatsNumbers

Facts, figures, statistics, datapoints galore for your presentations, or for conversations. Use them, quote them, or just be amazed.

Collated by Neha Kumari

Heating, ventilating, and air conditioning

(HVAC) systems

account for between

40% and 60% of total energy use (all forms of energy) in the commercial sector.

Accounting for only

5% of the world’s population, Americans consume

26% of the world’s total energy.

1.8 tonnes of oil are

saved for every tonne of

recycled polythene produced

Around 80% of the e-waste in the U.S. is exported to Asia in countries like China, India and Kenya where lower environmental standards and working conditions make processing e-waste more profitable.

A CNG vehicle is

95% cleaner than a

gasoline-powered vehicle

Glass never wears out — it can be recycled

forever!52 Sustainuance October 2012

CHEAT SHEET

Silicon from

just one ton of sand, used in photovoltaic cells, could produce as much electricity as burning

500,000 tons of coal.

One wind turbine can produce enough electricity to power up to power up to

300 homes.

Green India Mission (GIM) is one of the 8th Mission under national action Plan of

GOI launched to respond the climate change by a combination of adaptation and mitigation measures.

China and India will account for

45% of the increase in global primary energy demand by

2030, with both countries more than doubling their

energy use over that period, according to the IEA World Energy Outlook 2007.

The world’s population is growing by

200,000 people a day

The production of a single computer uses

42,000 gallons of water.

One tonne of CO2 would:• fill a typical three bedroom house• be produced by 4000 car miles

consuming approximately 550 litres of fuel

• be offset by 150 mature (25 years old) pine trees per year.

Plastic makes up

9% of average household waste.

Half the world’s original

forest cover of some three billion hectares has been

destroyed in the last 40 years; only 20% of what remains is undisturbed by human activities.

One ton of paper

made completely from

recycled scrap saves

7000 gallons of water,

4100 kilowatt-hours of energy,

three cubic yards of landfill space, and

17 trees.

84% of consumers in China, India, Malaysia and Singapore say they would accept a higher price for green products - compared to only

50% in Western countries.


FOCUS

Gujarat has made rapid strides in renewable energy, with a multitude of solar power projects running full steam

Jigna Khajuria

The Gujarat Solar Park at Charanka in Patan is the largest in Asia and has a capacity to host a total of 500 MW

In response to the threat of global warming and energy security, Gujarat announced the ‘Solar Power Policy’ in January 2009. Since such power

projects require large stretches of land, the Gujarat government introduced the concept of solar park.

Gujarat recorded an installation of 605 MW solar power plants by January 2012, and the projects have attracted an investment of Rs 9,000 crore, while also providing employment to 30,000 skilled and unskilled manpower.

These solar plants will generate 30 lakh units of clean energy per day and have the capacity to electrify 10 lakh households. They will also reduce CO2 emissions at the rate of 10 lakh tonnes per year.

The project is supported by the Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission. Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd

took the initiative and signed Power Purchase agree-ments for 968.5 MW with 85 national and interna-tional solar project developers by 2010.

Among other initiatives in renewable energy, Gujarat has commissioned 789 MW of wind power. This year, the state expects to commission 1,000 MW, most of which is in the pipeline. Two towers with a capacity of 4 MW have already been built. Once the installations are complete, this will be the biggest solar-wind hybrid power park in the world.

The state also plans to develop geo-thermal energy and tidal energy for which research is going on.

Solar park project: The Gujarat Solar Park at Charanka in Patan is the largest in Asia and has a capacity to host a total of 500 MW.

The park uses around 5,000 acres of land, including 2,669 acres of government land (private land acquisi-tion has not started yet).

It utilizes government waste lands, taking advan-tage of high solar radiations and utilizing common

So what if sun rises in east?


infrastructure to host multiple solar power projects. It also promises to extend the industry and employment to the remote locations of Gujarat.

Gujarat Power Corporation Ltd (GPCL) is the nodal agency for the park and has invested Rs 300 crore in the park infrastructure. Gujarat Energy Transmission Corporation Ltd (GETCO) has invested Rs 650 crore in the evacuation and transmission network. The Asian Development Bank has given a loan of Rs 500 crore for the project.

The Solar Park received CII’s Environmental Best Practices Award for the Most Innovative Project in Feb 2012.

Model solar city project: The state capital of Gandhinagar is being developed as a model solar city. The city already has several rooftop solar system installations ranging from 1 kW to 150 kW aggregat-ing to a capacity of 1.39 MW. The rooftop practice also offers significant potential for employment.

Now the state government has floated a 5 MW

• The School of Solar Energy was launched in 2008 at Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University (PDPU), Gandhinagar.

• The huge solar power plants make it mandatory to have skilled local workforce for construction, operation and maintenance of the plants

• The Directorate of Employment and Training (DET), Govt of Gujarat, with the support of GERMI and GPCL, has undertaken the important initiative to train the youth of Gujarat through various Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) in the state.

• A one-month ‘Solar Photovoltaic Technician’ specialization course and syllabus has already been established through the Gujarat Council for Vocational Training.

Education, research and vocational training

Gandhinagar (Solar) Photovoltaic Rooftop Program through a public-private partnership system. GPCL is the ‘implementing agency’ for this project.

Two developers – SunEdison Energy India Pvt Ltd and Azure Sun Energy Pvt Ltd – have been selected through a transparent international competitive bidding process.

Similar rooftop solar programmes will be intro-duced to cities like Mehsana, Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Surat and Vadodara in the near future.

Canal solar power pro-ject: It is the first canal-based solar power project in India. A 1 MW pilot project is already commissioned on Narmada near Chandrasan village of Mehsana district. It is installed on a 750 meter stretch of the canal. It will generate 1.6 million units of clean electricity per year, and also prevent evaporation of 90 lakh litres of water every year from the canal.

The project is developed by Gujarat State Electricity Corporation Ltd with support from Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd.

• A dedicated road for the local villagers will facilitate easy movement from one end to another without interfering with the solar park activities

• At present, villagers are dependent on water from the reservoir for a period of about one year. GPCL will later be able to provide water for a minimum of three months to carry out cultivation activities

• Drinking water will be made available to Charanka village

• An ambulance service will be made available for the villagers

• An all-weather road connecting SH 127 from Jamvada to Charanka via Fangli would be completed

• A state-of-the-art training facility would be there to train villagers in various fields

Social initiatives by GPCL


GREEN TAKE

As the expanse of IT has grown in enterprises, so has the need and importance for IT sustainability.

In particular, the power and cooling needs of modern day data centers and IT systems form a significant part of the enterprise’s overall power expenses.

IT sustainability enables organizations to leverage greater benefits out of their IT infrastructure and to achieve improved returns on investments. It also equips them to maintain the pace of business growth and be more sustainable when faced with unforeseen downtrends in the economy and the markets.

Organizations that fail to embrace sus-tainability would also have tougher times when required to struggle it out during a rough economic patch and may even find it hard to survive in the long term. IT sustainability, in our company BSES, is a very important part with a well-defined road map and a futuristic approach. With this in place, along with the will to take on challenges, there comes accountability as well as ownership at all levels. To make

Initiatives such as keeping only the required systems on at a given time while making the additional ones available on demand can be effective

Dynamically adjusting IT supply helps contribute to an organization’s overall sustainability goals in a meaningful way

K B Singh

the IT further more sustainable, we have the green IT initiative within the organi-zation. Along with a host of other meas-ures, we also took steps to optimize the power consumption and have the right mechanisms and controls on the waste generation as well as disposal.

BSES’s first data center started work-ing 10 years ago and later on we worked a lot to make it green-compliant to a large extent. We prepared a plan in a phased manner to convert it into a green data center and that has worked very well to a great degree of satisfaction. We reduced the power consumption in the data center through various initiatives, including servers and storage consolidation so that only the required resources were on at a particular time while additional resources could be made available either on the basis of historical trends or on demand. Virtualization, though limited, had been a key enabler in achieving this. Implementing rack-based cooling systems helped a lot in saving energy while the energy-efficient blade servers as well as storage added a lot of value.

With 5,000 desktops and 1,000 print-ers in our organization, energy saving creates big impact. So we started lots of initiatives including power management system, moving with the backup and patches from night to day, using the sleep mode when laptop is not in use, switching off the monitor when not in use or before going home and restricted use of paper as well as printers.

A key to sustainability is how dynamic IT is in the organization, which also includes the IT team’s acceptability, cred-ibility and ability to deliver. The manage-ment’s attitude towards IT is important and so is the senior IT leadership’s attitude toward the business.

K. B. Singh is the vice president, IT, BSES.

Lean IT is green too. How?


INTERVIEW


“ AS VOLUMES

GO UP, SOLAR PRICE COULD

COME DOWN UP TO Rs 4 PER WATT

While global media at large and Indi-an media in particular have heaped praises on how Gujarat has moved

miles ahead on the road to renewables, it has not been a journey that was made overnight. The story of renewable revolution in Gujarat is a sto-ry of how a strong political will and bureaucratic fervour can go a long way in achieving results. The man often credited for the renewed renew-able change in Gujarat is an unassuming IAS officer, DJ Pandian, Principal Secretary, En-ergy and Petrochemicals Department. Working tirelessly out of his office in Gandinagar, Pandi-an has contributed immensely in changing the face of the state. His biggest achievement has been the speed at which the projects have been implemented. He has also taken great pains to ensure that the government is not spearhead-ing the efforts alone but the private sector, too, plays a crucial role. In a free-wheeling interac-tion with Shashwat DC, Pandian shares the secret behind the success in Gujarat, while also duly crediting his mentor, CM Narendra Modi, as a real force behind it. Excerpts:

”


ujarat has taken an indis-putable lead when it comes to renewable energy gen-eration, especially on the solar front. What have been the factors that have facili-tated this transition? What are the pointers that the rest of Indian states can learn and adopt?

Even we wanted to go for more. At that time it was mainly us, so we introduced wind. We invested a lot of money in it, putting in the sub-station, putting up the line, but we needed some time. Of the last ten years, the first five years we did not make progress, but in next five years we got 2,500 MW. Out of 2000 MW 900 MW were ready in the last year itself. Now, it is about to take off as far as wind is concerned. Solar was mainly based on rooftop here and there, but not much progress happened.

We wanted to introduce it as a mega-scale grid, so we started with one MW pilots. The government wanted to spend money to demonstrate. People wouldn’t spend until they could see how much is the capital cost and how much tariff they would get in advance. So we put up 1 MW of solar in one of the universities on a pilot basis. We could do it in 108 days, and successfully connected it to the grid and it was producing 1 MW. It was a big success, and then many people got the confi-dence that solar technology was not a big myth. We then espoused a policy of giving a tariff of Rs 15 (which is decided right now, but at that time it was Rs 18).

Then we brought all bankers together and improved their confi-dence. Here is the government that will pay for their electricity supply, we said. We will not be like other govern-ments and utilities who say that we will supply power but you don’t pay. We are not in debt, and our discounts are a way to profit. So the bankers gave loan to the developers. Then we introduced the Solar Park. Right now almost 255 MWs have come back and people have put in their own land also. So we have 700 MWs commissioned today.

In spite of being a tropical country, with more than 300 full ‘sun-days,’ India has still lagged much behind in adoption of solar power. What do you think are the primary reasons for that and how can the uptake be accelerated?

Though it has the potential, the technology is cost-lier and is complicated too. So people were worried. Somebody had to take a bold step seeing the high cost. That Gujarat did, because our discounts are making

profit. Instead of paying income tax, let me pay to the developers, we said. And now whole of India is talking about solar power.

In Tamil Nadu, they sell solar panel on the streets, like any other commodity. So everybody can put it up on their rooftop to produce their own electricity, and to light their own bulbs. That is how we went step by step – 1 MW of grid-connected solar power, weather power, then rooftop in cities, then canal. That’s how we popularised solar power. But even though we are paying Rs 15 per unit, we are not passing it on to the consumers. We are tallying our discounts and adjust-ing our profits. We also have surplus power, and we have also tied our power at very low rates – Rs 2.80, Rs 2.56, Rs 2.35. The solar power that we are producing is hardly one percent of the total generation capacity in terms of million units. So, we mix it, bundle it, sell it outside the state and make profit.

What is your long-term goal for renewable energy?

The chief minister recently said that 20 percent of energy should come through renewables in the next 20 years. Right now we are using 6 percent of energy from renewables. It may be wind, solar or biomass, but we don’t have much potential for hydro. We want to go for more renewable energy – 20 percent being our ideal while 80 percent would be conventional.

One of the biggest thresholds for renewable uptake has been stated to be the point where power generation costs of renewable energy per watt would be cheaper than conventional power per watt. When do you think we will cross that threshold, if at all? And what needs to be done, to accelerate that process?

It is possible only if you go on a larger scale. It’s like the mobile service – initially it was very costly, then volumes went up and the rates came down. So when the volume goes up and every house has 20 percent of the energy generated through the rooftop, prices will come down to four rupees. There are so many roofs available, so as the production of the panels will go up, the economy of scale will take place. The tech-

nology has also improved, not only in India, but also in the US and in China. So the Government of India and Government of Gujarat should enforce it on every new household that 20 percent of their energy should come from renewable. We need to change our building code, our utilization formula. Then it is possible.

One of the major things done by Gujarat was to deal with the supply issues, getting digitisation in power structure, because there was a lot of loss. How can we minimise that?

It is a big challenge. On one side we are surplus, so we

“Right now we are using 6 percent of energy from renewables. We want to ideally reach 20 percent through renewables while 80 percent would come from conventional”


INTERVIEW

“Asian Development Bank has agreed to give us 500 million dollars to put up a smart grid. That will help us digitise solar and wind energy distribution”

are able to put the surplus power in the grid. Solar and wind energies have been produced only in recent times when the grids were available. Digitisation means a lot of investment in the infrastructure and the sub-stations. Fortunately, we are segregating our agricultural power and rural power. We invested significantly five years ago in the rural power dis-tribution and allocation system and that is helping us. In addition, we want to put up smart metering, to systematically isolate the troublesome areas and power will continue to be allocated. We approached Asian Development Bank; they’ve agreed to give us 500 million dollars to put up a smart grid in Gujarat. That will help us to take care of solar and wind energy.

Could you briefly touch upon the Gandhinagar project and the Canal project…

We wanted to introduce some novelty and innova-tion. After putting one megawatt in a university, we realized the land was very costly. So we thought let’s go to a remote place. So we introduced the Solar Park which is in the desert. But it was still costly. So we thought of the canal. The land was available, so we put it up there. Now, land cost became zero, but structural cost is increasing. We have to see how to reduce the structural cost. We have called scientists and engineers and they are suggesting new ways for putting up low-cost structures under the canal. So it will become cheaper. Thus, we constantly try to innovate and see how to reduce costs. That is our motto.

After the examples from China and Japan, now India is also coming up with bigger projects in solar. Where do we head from here?

This is one big area. Because we are not manufacturing solar panels (we do but on a very limited scale), we need to encourage production in a big way. It is the mother of solar energy. China is leading in it. We invest a lot of money in giving subsidy based on policies. The moment we make the policy easier, the sale will be easier and panels will also be simpler. Gujarat govern-ment is ahead, but maybe after the elections we will go ahead in a big way and attract manufacturing industries in Gujarat.

On the policy front, Gujarat has gone ahead with its project by framing its own policies to promote generation of power, how has that been?

The Central policy is that 30 percent of component should be domestic. We did not put up the restric-tion. For Gujarat, domestic is Gujarat, but we don’t do much manufacturing. If you put domestic in

Noida, we won’t be eligible. Why not utilize the competition?

One of the amazing things about Gujarat is the participation it got from the private sector. The state as well as investors benefit. What has been the secret?

This is a high-cost, high-end technology. Unless we rope in private players, it is not sustainable for the government. Government cannot play monopoly in this. If we introduce private players, the rates come down. But it is still a risk. The other side of the criticism is that you are paying more to the private players. Right now, if we go for bidding, I can get it for six rupees, so that benefit indirectly comes to the Government of India, but we took the first step. Our tariffs are subjective, and we facilitate a lot in getting the land, in getting permission, and in government clearance. For providing water to clear up everything in the desert area, we put up a pipeline. We did what-ever we could. This is what private investors want; they are getting good returns on their money.

Recently Crisil said that Rs 9 per unit is not feasi-ble. What is your thought on that?

That is Crisil’s view, but right now it is somewhere around Rs 8 and people are willing to come forward.

For the ecosystem, you need par-ticipation from educational institu-tions and researchers. Have you also been connecting from that viewpoint?

We have selected ten engineering col-leges and have put solar on their roof-tops for power generation. We also cre-ated a sort of interest among them. We have also put up solar panels and power protection centres in IIT Gandhinagar. We created Gujarat Energy Research Management Institute, which is train-ing people in the ITIs, particularly those who have completed their 10th or 12th. We are involving people in a different way. But we also need sup-

port from Government of India in the research grant so that we can expedite this in a big way.

Do you feel any sort of pressure since the bench-mark is set so high in terms of projects? People look towards Gujarat for better and grander plans…

We take pleasure in surpassing all benchmarks. Hopefully, next time we will set new benchmarks, with a real hero in our chief minister, Narendra Modi, to our advantage.


FEATURE

Global Reporting Initiative methods promote socio-economic and environmental sustainability, extending scope beyond energy efficiency, plantation and water management

By Amit Patel

A big-picture framework

Responsible development has become an imperative for existence of organizations. Sustainability involves assessing and managing

the impact spectrum of organizational growth plans on the stakeholders.

Most organizations believe they have monopoly of wisdom in understanding growth impacts and its mitigation measures. But stakeholder understanding and expectations may be 180 degree apart. To achieve sustainability, organizations too narrowly focus on energy efficiency, plantation and water management, often leaving out complex issues of materiality,

labor management, biodiversity, health and safety of employees. Achieving operational efficiency may not cover all that is required to be a sustainable organiza-tion. Involving stakeholders to understand their perspective is the logical first step to start the journey towards sustainability.

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a non-profit organization that promotes economic, envi-ronmental and social sustainability. Reporting on diverse parameters requires organizations to engage stakeholders. GRI’s mission is to make sustainability reporting standardized and comparable.


The framework has been designed for organizations to report on their economic, environmental and social performances. It is applicable to all organizations irrespective of the sector, geography and size, and is the world’s most widely used sustainability-reporting framework.

Increasing adoptionOrganizations increasingly realize that stakeholders expect more accountability in not only financial performance, but also in environmental and societal performance. There was an increase of 22 percent in the number of reports registered on the GRI, rising from 1,491 in 2009 to 1,818 in 2010.

The ‘KPMG International Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting 2011’ lists the following findings:❱ 95 percent of the 250 largest companies in the world

(called G250 companies) now report on their corpo-rate responsibility (CR) activities (See Figure 1)

❱ 64 percent of 100 largest companies in each of the 34 countries studied (the N100 companies), report on their corporate responsibility (Figure 1)

❱ 80 percent of G250 and 69 percent of N100 companies adhere to the GRI sustainability reporting guidelines (Figure 2)

Indian companies, too, are slowly catching up with the idea of reporting their sustainability perfor-mance. There was a slight increase in the number of organizations reporting on GRI framework – from 21 in 2009 to 23 in 2010.

The number may be small, but the quality of reports from India is the best as assessed by GRI itself. According to statistics from the GRI reports list, for the period of January to December 2010, 18 out of the 23 reports from India that were declared to GRI reported against all relevant indicators in the GRI guidelines, and were ‘assured.’ This shows an increase from 15 out of 21 reports from India being completed and assured in 2009.

Reporting processThe small number of reports from India may be attrib-utable to the complex and time consuming process of reporting. The reporting process can be simplified by systematically following the five steps as prescribed by GRI:

Prepare: The first step is to identify the contents of report, which involves understanding the major impact areas of an organization, e.g. beverage companies’ major impact area would be water. The preparation also involves forming the blueprint of the action plan to prepare report

Connect: After identifying major impact areas, the next step involves talking to stakeholders and under-standing sustainability topics in the identified area.

Define: This is a crucial step in the process that involves defining scope and boundary of the report-ing. For defining scope, management discussion may be held to understand the influence and capability of the organization.

Monitor: This is the opera-tional step of reporting process. It involves identifying relevant processes and systems. The key activities and parameters for which data needs to be collected are defined and the information is collected.

Report: Reporting finally involves compiling all the data and presenting it in meaningful and easily comprehensible for-mat. Comparing performance against historical data and presenting matrices about key topics is important.

Report ratingAn organization can self-rate the report based on the number of parameters it reports as per the GRI guidelines. The GRI ratings are based on information disclosure rather than performance in economic, environmental and social areas. If the reports are externally verified then a ‘+’ rating is added to the rat-ing claimed by an organization. For example, a report self-rated as ‘B’ would become B+ if it is externally assured.

A GRI report involves disclosing information in key areas of economic, environment, social and

The reporting framework helps an organization to benchmark, measure and thereby improve its sustainability performances

GRI software essentialsAn organization should look for the following features when going for a GRI software solution:

• Flexibility: The end user should be able to configure the location specific GRI parameters

• Inbuilt GRI parameters: This reduces the burden of manually entering parameters

• Creation of profiles and privileges: This would ensure that information is displayed based on assigned roles

• Built-in reports: The end user should be able to create and generate specific reports on a real time basis. Also, they should be able to assign or create targets for various parameters.

• Drilldown dashboards: This is for executive reporting and analysis against real time data

• User-defined frequency: End user can define the frequency of data collection for each site.

• In-built alerts: The notifications should be generated in case of non-completion of task.

• Standardization: It should be built as per GRI guidelines.

• Integration: An interface should make it easy to integrate with external systems like SAP, Oracle and others.

• Export: It should be possible to export the repot to standard formats like Excel, Word, PowerPoint and CSV.


FEATURE

Even when the data is collected, the consistency of data may be missing in terms of units and reporting period. Further, manual data collection is error prone.

The time lag for report publication for an Indian organization is approximately a year after the period of report.

One best practice for organizations to follow is to define the owner of parameters and the aspects responsible for collecting relevant data as per the scope and finally reporting it. Considering the wide range of parameters, the stakeholder would also be diversified, say in terms of department or location.

IT tools and their applicabilityApplicable data in an organization is collected from enterprise systems, spreadsheets, paper forms and hardware devices such as utility meters. An enter-prise tool can seamlessly integrate with disparate systems and collect financial information, and consumption or HR data. Once configured, it enables the organization to collect, monitor and analyze data continuously to assess and improve performance and deviations in real time. Deploying a software solution could result in huge savings in costs, eliminate errors, and most of all, improve the processes.

If the organization does not have sustainability management and reporting as its overriding priority, there is no need to suddenly start taking the drastic steps. But collecting data related to energy, material, water consumption and gaining an insight from it would always improve operational efficiency and provide quicker RoI. Gradually, the steps can be taken to continue the journey towards a sustainable organization.

Amit Patel is MD and CSO, Setu Net Pvt. Ltd. A golf enthusiast, he has also been working in the EHS&S domain for more than a decade now. He can be reached at [email protected].

Organizations can self-rate their reports based on the number of parameters as per the GRI guidelines, and if externally verified a report self-rated as ‘B’ becomes B+

Fig2 - Percentage of Companies Reporting on GRI Framework

N100 G250

The GRI continues as the global standard for reporting standards

2008 2011

0%GRI

guidelinesCompany

developed criteria

National reporting standard

Other

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

69

19 1713

69

13 10

28

0%GRI

guidelinesCompany

developed criteria

National reporting standard

Other

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

77

20 1913

80

21 2117

Fig1 - Percentage of Companies Reporting on Sustainability Performance

0%1993

1218

2428

41

53

64

35

45

64

83

95

1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

N100 companies making strong progress

N100 - 100 largest companies in each of the 34 contries studied

G250 - 250 largest companies in the world

governance. As per the guidelines, an organization can choose to report on 84 parameters for more than 34 aspects.

The complexity in reporting is involved in identify-ing processes with major impact areas, capturing data and analyzing those. While reporting on more than 84 parameters, defining the scope for each parameter is also a complex process.

Manual data collection can be an arduous process taking a lot of time and affecting productive work.


SustainuisanceA modest take on all things not so mundane...

By Rohan Chakravorty


GREEN TOON

VIEWPOINT

The world has been waking up to the need for sustainability, and India is no exception to that. The so called

development over the past several decades has brought the environment to a brink.

A certain kind of mindlessness has ren-dered ‘development’ one of the most abused terms in modern human history. In theory, development may mean growth and pro-gress beyond the present state, but in prac-tice, it is often about destroying what is there in place and building something else (that isn’t necessarily more valuable to the environment).

Yes, sometimes it may be necessary to destroy, but it is still important to be mind-ful to retain what is beneficial.

Also, development is a process and it has to be subjective too, varying from country to country, city to city and person to person.

Those who have witnessed the coming up of new a Gurgaon and are also given to stay and work there would probably agree the most, though that doesn’t make experience of other city dwellers better. A positive contrast to that is what the Metro rail has done to Delhi and the national capital region around. That is what a good example of mindful development is.

As far as India is concerned, lack of self-belief and mindless chase of the Western development models seems to have landed us in a mess. Our cities are a prime example of that.

What we need is developers, planners, policy makers and leaders who are mind-ful of their decisions and acts. That is what would bring the right vision and direction to development in the country at all levels and in all sectors—public or private.

Now answer this: If India was to be a large profitable company and also embrace sustainability, green and CSR, whom would you consider best as the CEO?

I actually floated this question as a poll on Facebook, offering respondents four names and the option to choose an “other.”

Why can’t we develop sustainability models and standards that are grounded in our social, cultural and environmental states?

The best answers to India’s sustainability needs may actually be embedded in the lives and acts of some of our social thinkers and leaders

Deepak Kumar

(See Graphic 1 for results.)It was noteworthy to see that only 19

percent of the respondents chose to select “other” while the other 81 percent polled in favor of Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore or Mother Teresa. Responses to “other” included names like Subhas Chandra Bose, NR Narayana Murthy and Ratan Tata.

These results are significant. I had delib-erately chosen names that don’t resonate with the contemporary Western models of sustainability. Yet, most of the respondents seemed to be guided by the belief that the answers to India’s sustainability require-ments rested no far than the lives and mod-els demonstrated by these social thinkers and leaders of the modern and post-modern India.

Why, when our self-belief is so strong, do we not attempt putting that to practice too? Why can’t we develop sustainability mod-els and standards that are grounded in our social, cultural and environmental states?

That brings up the second question from the poll: “What was the basis of your choice [for CEO, Sustainable India Inc.]?

“He/she could mobilize people for great causes,” said a 37 percent of the overall respondents, irrespective of who they voted for. “He always cared for people and their environment,” was the basis stated by, lesser, 25 percent of respondents.

Again, what does that signify? Well, my interpretation is that perhaps the need to mobilize the cause of sustainability is felt greater than espousing the concept itself. And that’s probably the reason why Swami Vivekananda polled maximum responses—who else in the history of mod-ern India has been known to mobilize and awaken people better than him?

Deepak Kumar specializes in IT and telecom market research and advisory and is reachable at [email protected] where he is Founder Analyst

A green heritage

Mahatma Gandhi

16%

42%

10%13% 19% Swami Vivekananda

Mother Teresa

Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore

Other

He/She always cared for people and their environment

9%37%

16%13% 25%

He/She advocated coexistence and tolerance

He/She could mobilise people for great causes

He/She stood as symbol of harmony

OtherGraphic 2: What was the basis of your choice?

Graphic 1: If India was to be a large profitable company and also embrace sustainability, green and CSR, whom would you consider best as the CEO?

Mahatma Gandhi

16%

42%

10%13% 19% Swami Vivekananda

Mother Teresa

Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore

Other

He/She always cared for people and their environment

9%37%

16%13% 25%

He/She advocated coexistence and tolerance

He/She could mobilise people for great causes

He/She stood as symbol of harmony

Other


SU

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NC

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state of the G

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