The environment and its conservation is on top of everyone’s mind at the moment. While there is a lot of focus on trying to get back green cover by trying to plant more saplings, there are many things you can do, to do your bit for the environment. This can start fundamentally with your home. Builders today have realised this and consumers are lapping up the offerings with a lot of gusto.

So let’s start at the beginning. What does an ecological home really mean? Says A Bimal Hegde, Director-Marketing, Chartered Housing (P) Ltd, “In simple words, it is just a building/home which is eco-friendly. This could be achieved in different ways. One way is by using eco-friendly materials like stabilised mud blocks, etc. This material is not expensive and is also eco-friendly. Another way could be by designing the building/home in such  a manner that the light and ventilation is taken care of.

This helps the user in consuming minimal lighting and air conditioning and in turn saves a lot of electricity.” Agrees architect Chitra K Vishwanath, “The house is built in such a way wherein it has the least negative impact on the plants, wildlife and human beings in the area. It is designed to suit the climate of the area and uses alternative forms of energy for it’s running and maintenance relying on sun, wind and biomass instead of the grid supply.”Ecological homes reuse and recycle most waste and used materials that are available very close to the site/area. It encourages local handicraft or art and harvests rain water and reuses most water that the building consumes. It is a home that takes the least from earth’s natural resources to build.

Says, Harsha Sridhar, Chief Anchor - Design Cell, BCIL, “For example, a mud wall-based, thatch-roofed structure of a farmer is the most sustainable, for it uses the least. He does not transport any material from any big distance by trucks that consume diesel, which is another precious fossil fuel that hurts the planet’s resources. In the urban context, using bricks is ‘not friendly’ since it uses precious topsoil that takes 1200 years to form one inch of it, naturally! Bricks use energy at 400 deg C. And the energy used mostly comes from cutting forest wood or by using coal, both natural resources that are finite and therefore exhaustive or extractive.”

Indian scene
The concept of green buildings is being followed worldwide to strike a balance between natural resources and alternate techniques. Although the concept of eco-friendly buildings is not very common in India, people are becoming more aware of it. “The government is making it mandatory to do rainwater harvesting, solar energy and sewage treatment plants for larger projects, “ says Hegde. The concept of ecological buildings is actively prevailing in the northern hilly regions and south Indian regions of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Use of renewable source of energy like sun - solar energy - an advance research has been done and a product which will absorb the heat and light of sun and convert into electricity is available, turning the conventional solar panels into more effectiveness; wind power energy, tidal waves energy, nuclear energy, CNG, hydrogen energy, etc, will make the world more ecological.  There are many homes that are being built in the city and the country that are ‘eco friendly’. Its popularity will depend on greater knowledge of the skills and technologies among individuals or corporate builders. This will mean more professionals - architects and contractors - who know how to build with just the small difference in the ways you approach a building.“Nearly every advertisement of any builder claims that the homes are ‘eco friendly’! Even using a set of solar PV lamps for gardens is touted as a major effort at eco-friendliness. The happy tiding is that builders do realise today that being eco-friendly is a need in the marketplace. That is heartening because it shows that as customers, people today want to offer preference to homes that are ecologically sensitive. But are these builders really so or are they merely claiming on ads to entice us, is a question we should ask before we buy a home,” says Sridhar.

As an effort towards observing 100 percent eco sensitive buildings, mixed use of construction techniques is prevalent in practice, where usage of reinforcement is minimised to the greatest extent in a building. “The eco-project that we are working on is a project in Khandala ‘A Spa House’. The concept revolves around a house that is inside out with nature and the entire project will have a renewable source of energy (wind energy) to run the necessary utility services.

It’s concept is that of keeping your body, mind and soul close to nature and use of materials like wood, bamboo, brick, RCC and glass,” says Chougule. “We have completed three projects. BCIL Trans Indus on Kanakapura Road, BCIL T Zed Homes in Whitefield and BCIL TownsEnd and BCIL Collective in Yelahanka. We have initiated some extremely core environment initiatives in Coorg (Little Acre, a rainforest patch protection initiative which is unique to the world) and Gaia, a holiday homes project in Goa that doesn’t use any laterite blocks at all in a region where no one builds without laterite,” says Sridhar.

Ecological footprint
Wikipedia defines ecological footprint as the human demand on nature. It compares human consumption of natural resources with planet Earth’s ecological capacity to regenerate them. It is an estimate of the amount of biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb the corresponding waste, given prevailing technology. Says Chitra Vishwanath, “The materials should be such that they can go back to nature without hurting the environment when the building or home is destroyed otherwise the materials used should be recyclable or reusable and in this way decreasing the ecological footprint of the building.” All ecological homes will necessarily mean an acceptance of a new lifestyle. The question however is - are you ready for it?

Practising what she preaches?
Chitra Vishwanath ‘s home :The house is built with stabilised mud blocks that are not fired like the ordinary bricks we know. A small percentage of cement is used as a stabiliser along with soil or mud from the site and quarry dust (instead of sand). This house recycles its waste by using compost. All organic waste from the house is turned into compost and the byproduct is used as organic manure. The washing machine water is reused for flushing and is recycled to grow paddy on the terrace. The terrace is used as a garden and the house uses a solar cooker, solar lighting systems and solar water heating systems. It has Eco San-Ecological sanitation, wherein all waste is reused for organic manure. Rainwater is harvested and stored in the underground sump and used for drinking. All grey water from bath and kitchen is recycled and used for watering of plants. The house has created a small micro environment around it that encourages about 32 species of birds and many species of butterflies, bees, wasps and insects. And if you thought that was all, the house has never had fans and incorporates natural light in its design!