Be it parks, offices, schools, or houses, with efforts to conserve water and power and improve the efficiency of the buildings, these can be environment-friendly structures.
Apart from creating awareness and building capacities of green building consultants, the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) here plans to convert a Corporation school into a green building. This is an effort to encourage educational institutions to go in for green buildings.
Rajesh B. Lund, chairman of Coimbatore chapter of IGBC, told The Hindu on Thursday that the council had requested the Corporation to identify a school building that had good ventilation and permit the council to make it into a green building. The council could take up the required works. Existing buildings, especially factories, commercial structures, and schools, could be converted into green buildings.
The council had also given a proposal to the Coimbatore District Small Industries Association (Codissia) to convert the trade complex into a green building. Even small-scale units could convert the existing structures into environment-friendly ones, he said.
The council launched nine green building rating systems and these were for new buildings, townships, schools, factories, existing buildings and landscape.
There were a number of environment-friendly features and materials in a green building. These were planned and documented so that the structure could get a green building rating. Several green buildings were coming up in Chennai. In Coimbatore, awareness among the public had improved. The council organised a road show here for property promoters. “It is better to go in for sustainable development before it becomes mandatory,” he said.
If measures were taken from the planning stage, the cost difference between a normal building and a green building was not much. Availability of materials, resources base, and professionals had increased in the country for development of green buildings.
Though more area was coming under green building in the country, efforts were on to take the concept to smaller towns, he added.
In Coimbatore, there were individual residential and factory units that were constructed as green buildings. It should catch on with multi-storeyed buildings too.
