Climate change is real and perhaps one of the most serious paradigm shifts that will impact our generation. The production and lifecycle of real estate is one of the most high consumption when it comes to resource utilisation and subsequent environmental impact. Globally the real estate sector accounts for nearly 40% of the world’s energy consumption, 30% of raw material use and 33% of the related global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Hence it is not only responsible but imperative to minimise and reverse the adverse impact of climate change when we consider development — conserving strained resources and seeking solutions to reverse these adverse externalities.
Sustainability is therefore a shared priority across the entire real estate development value chain, one that needs all of us to reduce our footprint across emissions, water and waste and to contribute to meaningful industry wide impact. The journey starts at the design stage, through construction to customer use and building maintenance in order to positively impact the project and in aggregate our built environment.
Mobilising communities
Waste is a key area of this industry-wide focus, which requires research, mapping, innovation and prototypes to help address complex problems. At a product level, the Ministry of Environment and Forest mandated norms are an excellent start. These are required for any project and when translated into Green Building certification parameters almost bring the building to base level certification. Good developers are taking this mandate forward into Silver, Gold and Platinum certification in their endeavour to be responsible and to bring the best value for their customers as more residential real estate consumers (both owners and tenants) demand green developments. It is heartening to see communities mobilising to ensure responsible living as collectives, sustaining green infrastructure at society and neighbourhood levels.
Recent green interventions such as biomethanation plants mandated as part of the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MOEF) and Environmental Clearance (EC) guidelines for master plan projects is a clear step in the right direction. A biomethanation plant is a conscious intervention to recycle and re-use wet waste produced on a site and additionally produce biogas and generate electricity for use. We commissioned one such plant for our flagship project in Vikhroli where environmental guidelines for the mixed use development required that it be set up to process wet waste from residential, commercial and hospitality buildings within the site.
Zero discharge project
The project engineering consultants had also recommended the plant for the treatment of the wet waste within the development at a centralised level. As the project is a zero discharge project, setting up the plant required establishing processes to address solid waste management in its entirety with segregation and treatment of the wet waste as an integral part. A plot of 250 sq.m. was allocated for the plant and the built structure of 62 sq.m. designed to evoke existing industrial buildings that have undergone adaptive reuse in the project’s signature palette of Corten steel and grey.
Inside the biomethanation plant. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Within the plant, the freshly segregated wet waste is collected at source and through a machine segregated, shredded moved into a slurry collection pit. From the slurry pit it is then pumped into the methanisation chamber where further composting takes place through microbial digestion. The resultant methane gas is collected in a large balloon above on the first floor level. Methane, a biogas, is still a greenhouse gas and is therefore not released into the atmosphere and is stored for further usage. The plant is designed to use methane at sufficient pressure to run a specialised generator to convert the gas into electricity which can be re-used. The plant can recycle 1.5 tonnes of waste per day, produce up to 135 cubic metre of biogas, which would in turn generate 135 units of electricity per day. This is provisioned to be connected back to the grid for net metering.
The plant is located in a landscaped area, is upgraded as needed and is operated with robust systems to maintain the highest levels of hygiene throughout the process and we look forward to more developments taking on the challenge on site waste management successfully. We truly believe that sustainable development is a collective responsibility. For this responsibility to be effective, every stakeholder within the lifecycle must pay their part where the customers and partners must be welcoming and encouraging on green innovations set up for the project.
The writer is Lead CSR and Sustainability, Godrej Properties.
