The information technology industry is going green. Out of the 550 “green buildings” under construction, 150 belong to the IT industry alone.
S Srinivas, principal counselor, Green Building Council, says the share of the IT industry in green buildings is the highest by any sector. The Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), the body set up by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to facilitate construction of ecologically-friendly buildings in India, says in the nine years since it launched the first such business centre in Hyderabad, the biggest share of green buildings has been taken over by the IT industry.
Green buildings are designed to better harness nature’s resources. Design interventions help facilitate maximum use of daylight, cross-ventilation, open spaces to create a healthier work environment and an optimisation of energy utilisation. Monitoring of green buildings is done through international codes.
LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, used in India, rates the buildings on a platinum, gold and silver level. Of the 74 buildings that have LEED certification in India, 18 belong to IT companies.
B V M Sarma, vice-president, Tata Consultancy Services, says: “Good indoor air quality automatically improves productivity. The IT industry is not like any other manufacturing industry. People need to use their minds and people are more creative only in a good work space.”
Cost recover, plus
Sarma agrees that the buildings cost three to five per cent more than conventional ones, but over a period of time, they not only recover the costs but begin to pay back in terms of a more efficient system. “Over a period of time, we can see an improvement in productivity. People spend more time at their work stations,” he says.
These buildings address what is more commonly known as a ‘sick building syndrome’. For instance, headaches and nausea after watching a movie is caused because of the closed space in the cinema hall, where carbon-dioxide levels reach very high levels.
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The IT industry is human resources-intensive and needs to create a healthy workspace for better productivity, explains Sarma. Green buildings are designed to be healthy. They bring in fresh air into a building, even with air conditioning. A big fan is used to constantly suck in fresh air, says Srinivas. Initially, people would switch the fan off for fear of increasing energy consumption. Eventually, these buildings turn out to be 30-40 per cent more energy-efficient. The CII’s green building in Hyderabad uses 1,60,000 units of power per year. A conventional building of that size uses 2,50,000 units per year, says Srinivas. Similarly, annual energy bills for Wipro have come down from 5.5 million units to 3.2 million units. Understandably, as 11 of Wipro’s buildings are green ones. ITC’s green building in Gurgaon also uses two million units of electricity every year, compared to 3.2 million units earlier, he says.
Some of the top-rated LEED buildings in India are ITC Green Centre, Wipro (several buildings), Infosys, TCS, K Raheja (BKC 30) at Mumbai, Hiranandani BG house, Technopolis IT Park, Olympia Tech Park at Chennai, Cisco, Bangalore and the new Tamil Nadu assembly building.