The Green Building Congress-2018, a part of the prestigious, flagship annual event focused on green building movement, got under way here on Thursday with speakers, led by Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, underscoring the prospects and significance of scaling up the work.
Inaugurating the three-day Congress, comprising a conference and exhibition at HICC, Mr. Puri, who is Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs, said government, builders and stakeholders need to join hands to produce solutions anchored in sustainability.
“Unless that happens, the pressure from civil society and consumers will actually envelope us and leave us in an unenviable situation,” he said, assuring his Ministry’s willingness to partner with the Indian Green Building Council. The IGBC spearheads the movement, certifies the buildings and facilities as well as organises the annual Green Building Congress.
Sustainability, he sought to underscore, should be the cornerstone of development and not restricted to smart cities. “I appeal to you to start looking at [all the] 4,300 cities [in India]. They also have to be green,” he said.
Toxicity levels
Pointing to the potential for redevelopment of buildings, from a perspective of bringing down the toxicity levels, the Minister said a Global Green Tech Construction Challenge would be launched later this year.
“We will invite all participants and entities with green technology to come and take part in this fascinating exercise,” he said.
On the Smart City project of the government, he said integrated command and control centres for 50 of the 100 chosen cities would be ready by December 2019. At present, 11 such centres were operational.
GHG emissions
Chair of the Board of World Green Building Council, Lisa Bate, said, “On a global scale, buildings today produce 33% of GHG emissions and consume 40% of energy. Two to five times more pollutants are found inside buildings as compared to outdoors. The World Green Business Council is working on creating better places for people, shifting the spotlight from buildings to occupants.”
IGBC Chairman V. Suresh said the Council has facilitated 6.33 billion sq. ft of green footprint and working to achieve 10 billion sq. ft by 2022.
On the occasion, the Green Building Rating System for net zero energy buildings (NZEB) was launched. Rich tributes were paid to Prem C. Jain, the immediate past chair of IGBC, who passed away in September, for his contribution to India’s green building movement.
