Technopark always strives to live up to its name as the greenest IT park in India. In the lead up to World Environment Day on June 5, a look at some individual, collective and Technopark-wide green initiatives that are having a positive impact on the environment.
Switching to energy efficiency
Park Centre, the operations HQ of Technopark, is leading the way in energy efficiency by replacing some of the older streetlights along a couple of main roads within campus, with energy efficient, cost effective LED lights, a couple of months ago. “It’s the right thing to do. Inside Park Centre we’ve switched over to CFL lamps and it has brought down energy consumption,” says Abhilash D.S. Assistant Manager, HR and Administration. They have also started planting trees in Phase III. “We want to replace water-guzzling Acacia trees that have proliferated on campus, with native trees that will keep the top soil intact. Technopark was once a forest of cashew nut trees and we are hoping to reintroduce a few of them on campus. We will gradually be doing the same for Phase I and Phase II,” he adds.
Going intelligent
There’s a move in Technopark to make even the buildings ‘intelligent.’ Several of the buildings on campus, well, the newest ones, at least, have been built keeping eco-friendliness in mind, with glass panelling that allows natural light to filer through and sun control films to reduce the head load, which in turn saves A/C consumption. Then there are motion-sensitive lights, onsite sewage treatment plants… IBS’ main campus, for example, where over a 1,000 people work, follows best practices in this regard. “We conduct regular awareness classes for our employees, urging them to shut down their systems after they are finished for the day, turn off unnecessary lights and so on. We have an energy monitoring system (by trained employees) in place for this every purpose. In the evenings, the vehicles of those who work beyond office hours are moved to one area so that particular area of the parking lot only needs to be lit. We’ve also ensured that water waste is reused for irrigation purposes,” says Prasanth Pillai, head – Facility Maintenance, Planning & Development. In fact, for their efforts, IBS got top billing at this year’s SEEM (Society of Energy Engineers and Managers) National Energy awards.
UST Global’s swanky new campus, set in 36 acres of greenery, complete with a vast pond and swans, is another example. “It’s been designed with the idea that one-third of space should be for water bodies, one-third for greenery and the rest one-third for humans,” says a manager in the know, who doesn’t wish to be named. The buildings, reportedly, have platinum rating from LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), the highest such certification, for inbuilt energy saving features such as, according to its website, a ‘louver system that helps cut off direct glare, reduces the air-conditioning load of the building and also induces bounce lighting into the interior space to enable daylight harvesting.’ It’s also a paperless office like many others on campus. Some companies like Allianz also organise no lift days in a bid to cut back on electricity consumption.
Grow your own food
A green revolution is well and truly underway in Technopark. Many companies have green clubs and organic farming of fruits and vegetables in gardens and on terraces has been in vogue among techies for a while now. The folk at Prakruthi, a green club on campus, which is celebrating its first anniversary, report that they themselves have distributed some 30,000 seedlings of vegetables such as brinjal, okra, runner beans, broad beans, red amaranthus, tomato, chilli and the like to 670 techies. “These plants are all in the growing stage and we are constantly monitoring them to get them ready for Onam,” says Biju Sundaran, who spearheads the initiative. Meanwhile, Prakruthi is rolling out a ‘Kuttykrishi’ programme in dozens of government schools across the district, taking off from a green initiative that they began at the Government L.P. School in nearby Kadinamkulam. “We’ll be providing each school with seedlings of easily growable plants such as amaranthus and 50 grow bags and also amping up the irrigation systems, if necessary,” he adds. Even Park Centre is in on the act. They now cultivate plantains around the newly-installed biogas plant, with its bio bins, incinerator and a plastic shredding unit to treat waste at source. The slurry is used as fertilizer for the garden. “We’ve already harvested our first crop of red amaranthus,” says Abhilash.
