siliconindia | | August 20189By Amol Prabhu, Partner, Shashi Prabhu & AssociatesWhile awareness percolates over time through the cracks of ignorance, every citizen until then could play their part in adopting as many norms as they could possibly affordonly changed the outlook of green architecture throughout the world, but also benefitted numerous organ-isations promoting their environ-mentally compliant products. Sadly, many of these products are not indig-enous, and as a result, Indian clients are forced to use foreign products if they want their buildings to be `Green' compliant of certain stan-dard. This not only costs more mon-ey to most of the smaller businesses, but is sometimes inappropriate in lo-cal context i.e. the local climate and culture. The higher costs force the customers to cut corners and com-promise on the end goal, thereby de-feating the essential purpose of long term sustainability.GRIHA Council, an indigenous body claiming to promote an interac-tion on scientific and administrative issues related to sustainable habitats in the Indian context, was formed, but hasn't seen as much of a successful penetration in India ­ at least not as much as what would have hoped for. In our opinion, this is partly because of lack of awareness and also due to failure of a mandate to include these standards through regulatory norms, as is done in the developed nations. It was rumored a few years ago that all buildings with central and/or state government funding would be forced to adopt GRIHA norms. Till date, no such thing has happened. Even today, most government and public funded projects do not have a mandatory re-quirement to comply with any of the green building norms. So, how can one blame the private sector for not adopting these standards knowing very well that adopting green archi-tecture is typically a capital-intensive effort in its short term, To a common customer, the future payback and sav-ings are only a hypothetical number.Adopting sustainability should be a duty of every citizen. While aware-ness percolates over time through the cracks of ignorance, every citizen un-til then could play their part in adopt-ing as many norms as they could pos-sibly afford, not just for the saving money, but for preserving our nat-ural resources for the benefit of our next generation - a tiny donation that would eventually pay-off immensely in the long run. Adoption of sustain-able elements should be intuitive and mandatory to be successfully exe-cuted. However, we try to convince our clients of the long-term benefits of these practices and most of them are open to the idea of making their, if not large, contribution to the cause within their means.Today, a host of resource conserv-ing ideas are available in the market such as Sensors automatically shut-ting down Energy Consuming devic-es during inactivity, Heat exchangers converting lost heat from Air-Condi-tioning systems into hot water, En-ergy saving LED lights, Geothermal plants using ground water for Aircon-ditioning Systems, Sewer Treatment Plants converting raw sewer into grey water usable for landscaping and AC Systems, and others. Even when de-velopers choose not to adopt the in-tensive Energy Saving Rating Certifi-cations for their buildings, they could adopt any combination of the energy saving components, thereby support-ing their contribution to a greener planet. After all, it goes without say-ing - `One small step for man could possibly be a giant step for mankind in the future'.
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