Towards a low-carbon future
There is need for greater interplay and communication between policy, research and practice.
While the government and policymakers are doing a commendable job on this front, participation is required by the private sector to leverage those policies and build more low carbon buildings.
This was underlined at a conference organised by Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) as a part of their Climate Change conference series in collaboration with CASLE (Commonwealth Association of Surveying and Land Economy), UK and Oxford Brookes University.
The theme of the conference was “Moving towards low-carbon buildings in India”.
The conference started with a comprehensive review of present-day energy policies, apart from how the low carbon buildings can be made a reality with the relevant interventions in design and innovative materials and how the value and cost savings from operational performance would make these buildings a viable proposition.
Speaking at the conference, Sachin Sandhir, Managing Director and Country Head, RICS India said, “Although sustainability principles may be embedded in the policies of property owners and occupiers, translating them to their property decisions has been difficult. RICS’ recent green gauge survey shows that over 70% of business decision makers are paying more attention to energy efficiency than last year, but fewer than half expect to make capital investments in efficiency. ”
Brian Waldy FRICS, Secretary General, Commonwealth Association of Surveying and Land Economy (CASLE) UK said, “Based on international experience and bearing in mind the potential that the real estate and construction sector have in India, there is a need to manage energy deficits to cater to a growing urban population, while implementing passive technologies that advocate the use of renewable sources of energy in order to mainstream green development for the community at large to profit from sustainable development in the future.”
The recommendations
More focus on passive architecture - The driving principle needs to be low energy consumption followed by low carbon emissions. With the promotion of passive design approaches for water, heating, and lighting emissions can be reduced by up to 46% in the case of retrofitting and 54% in the case of new buildings.
Greater focus on residential sector and individual homes - 80% of construction in India is in the residential sector is responsible for maximum consumption of embodied energy.
Retrofits of existing buildings – Energy Audit Studies have revealed a savings potential to the extent of 40% in end use such as lighting, cooling, ventilation, refrigeration etc. While rating systems such as LEED and GRIHA predominantly focus on new buildings, there is a need to having rating tools for retrofit buildings as well.
Capacity building and skill development of architects and other building professionals – The science of low carbon buildings is more advanced than our capacity to implement these technologies and designs. It is therefore critical to build capacity and train existing professionals – architects, civil engineers and builders in the techniques and technologies of green buildings.
Data collection and monitoring using Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) – Indian building sector suffers from a lack of organised data (only anecdotal evidence exists) that demonstrate the cost savings, along with a high degree of unawareness on the potential of ICT to intelligently collate and use building data to reduce energy consumption.
Tools for whole lifecycle costing approach – It is highlighted that there is a lack of tools and evaluation models that enable analysis of lifecycle cost and energy efficiency parameters on the same scale.
Value of sustainability - Not all aspects of sustainability translate easily or demonstrably into market value, yet they nevertheless exist. To promote investments in sustainable development, a method needs to be established for the explicit statement of value for money in the context of sustainability.
Awareness building campaigns and knowledge sharing forums are important – There is a need for knowledge transfer across stakeholders from the design to completion stage for greater understanding of the need for energy efficiency and associated savings.
