World Green Building Day

By B Krishnakumar Sharma *

A resource person making a power point presentation during World Green Building Day observance at the Studio of Architect Section, Works Department on September 23 2011

We all have known and celebrated World Environment Day every year. But we least know about Green Building which is one of the most important factors relating to the environment and a perfect contributor in reducing global warming. So let us know and understand some facts about Green Building and let us observe the 23rd day of September as World Green Building Day along with the world.

Green Building: A building which creates harmony with its environment and can function using an optimum amount of renewable energy, consume less water, conserve natural resources, generate less waste and create spaces for healthy and comfortable living, as compared to conventional buildings, is a Green Building.

Instant examples: Use natural day-lighting to reduce the using of electrical lighting during day time, uses of solar panels to conserve solar energy, utilization of wind to regulate the temperature of rooms or wind turbine can be used to produce electric current, rain water harvesting, plantation of vegetation in-site to give shades, enhanced top soil thus prevents soil erosion and roof gardening or terrace gardening.

History: The contemporary Green Building movement arose out of the need and desire for more energy efficient and environmentally friendly building practices. The oil price increases of the 1970s spurred significant research and activity to improve energy efficiency and find renewable energy sources. This, combined with the environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s, led to the earliest experiments with contemporary Green Building. The Green Building field began to come together more formally in the 1990s.

A few early milestones in the US include:

• American Institute of Architects (AIA) formed the Committee on the Environment (1989)
• Environmental Resource Guide published by AIA, funded by EPA (1992)
• EPA and the US Department of Energy launched the ENERGY STAR programme (1992)
• First local Green Building programme introduced in Austin, TX (1992)
• US Green Building Council (USGBC) founded (1993)
• “Greening of the White House” initiative launched (Clinton Administration 1993)
• USGBC launched their Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) version 1.0 pilot programme (1998)

In India, there are two bodies that govern the norms of green buildings

• IGBC (Indian Green Building Council) launched their Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) in 2001 and
• TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute, Delhi) launched their Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA) in 2007.

Impacts of global warming by buildings: The International Energy Agency released a publication that estimated that existing buildings are responsible for more than 40% of the world’s total primary energy consumption, it has estimated 42 perecnt of the global water consumption and 50 percent of the global consumption of raw materials. We used conventional energy (fossil fuels, coal, natural gasses etc) in order to produce electricity for houses, for transportation etc.

So, huge amount of conventional energy has been used every single day to meet the demands. Existing buildings consumed nearly half of the global water. We need to concern more on these facts because there is gradual increase in population hence the consumption of water and conventional energy will rise.

Effects of building activities: It produces 50 percent of world’s air pollution, 42 percent of its greenhouse gases, 50 percent of all water pollution, 48 percent of solid wastes and 50 percent of all CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) are contributed by the buildings to the environment. How cements are manufactured? How iron and steels are manufactured? How plastics materials are made? Don’t puzzle yourself about the process how those materials are made. Think about how much carbon dioxide gasses are produced during its process. It produces tonnes of carbon containing gases into the atmosphere which lead to the air pollution and then helps in greenhouse effect.

Urban areas have emerged as one of the biggest sources of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, with building alone contributing to around 42 percent of the total GHG emission globally, thus resulting in Green House Effect.

Features of a Green Building

• Natural features of sites and its surrounding should be protected.
• Plants, Wetlands, Wildlife sanctuary, Water-bodies etc. should be protected to conserve flora and fauna. It is a prime decision to be made hence to balance the ecosystem.
• Improve more plantations to enhance the fertility of the top soil to support the growth of vegetations and to avoid soil erosion.
• Use native plants for landscaping and gardening. Because native plants adapt suitably in the local environment, need less caring and required less water for maintenance.
• Porous materials should be used for the pavements like courtyards because it absorbs water down to the ground thus maintaining ground water table and avoid unnecessary flood.
• 50 percent of the hard pavements should be in the shades to reduce heat island effect.

The hard surfaces of the roofs should be layered by Terrace gardening/roof gardening to block direct heating of the surfaces by sun and the trees can provide shading to the hard pavements which will avoid the heating effect of the sun.

• Use maximum amount of natural lighting during day-time to reduce the usage of conventional energy fuels.
• Conserve solar energy by using photo-voltaic panels.
• Utilization of wind energy to regulate the temperature of the rooms. Wind towers can be introduce to create good ventilation in the building.
• Usage of low flow fixtures in bathrooms and kitchen to reduce the excess water consumption.
• Use BEE (Bureau of Energy Efficient) star labeled electrical appliances.
• Use of locally found materials in the construction or as interior elements of the buildings. We can use locally found materials like bamboo for interior elements thus reducing using of concrete.
• Use low Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) because it contains formaldehyde, urea formaldehyde, and urethanes - and other chemical substances which are hazardous to the occupant health.
• Rainwater harvesting, storm water collection, rain garden etc should be followed to improve ground water level and it can be used in future also.
• Waste water treatments like root zone treatment should be adopted. Root zone treatment is a simple eco-friendly process to filtrate the waste water from septic tanks into raw usable water, it can be used later in gardening and landscaping
• Solid wastes should be segregated into biodegradable and non-biodegradable before disposing.

Benifits of a Green Building

Energy efficient buildings or the green buildings can reduce energy demand by as much as 40 percent as compare to the conventional building. Green building consumed 40-80 percent lesser water. Green building produced lesser waste. It generate lesser pollution during and as well as after construction. It ensures proper safety and health of the occupants.

The design can be such that the working and living environment in the buildings is quite comfortable during different seasons without too much dependence on the conventional energy. In fact, it has been suggested that the building sector has greatest potential to reduce GHG emission. Hence green buildings can create a great impact on environment reduce the global warming.

Environmental Benefits: Enhance and protect biodiversity and ecosystems, improve air and water quality, reduce waste streams and conserve and restore natural resources.

Economic Benefits: Reduce operating costs, create, expand, and shape markets for green product and services, improve occupant productivity and optimize life-cycle economic performance.

Social Benefits: Enhance occupant comfort and hea-lth, heighten aesthetic qualities, and minimize strain on local infrastructure and improve overall quality of life.

Examples of Green Building in India

1. CII Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre, Hyderabad is the first platinum rated building in India.
2. Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Building, Tamil Nadu
3. ITC Royal Gardenia, Bengaluru
4. Green Boulevard, Noida
5. Suzlon One Earth, Suzlon Energy Limited, One Earth, Pune.
6. CESE (Centre for Environmental Sciences and Engineering) Building, IIT Kanpur

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* B Krishnakumar Sharma wrote this article for The Sangai Express
The writer is a Senior Architect, PWD, Manipur. This article was webcasted on September 25, 2011.

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