Smaller cities and towns get a dash of 'green'

The emerging green building movement in India is spreading to smaller cities and towns from the metros, not to mention the diversity in the projects being registered for green building certification, according to a report by Jones Lang Lasalle Meghraj, a real estate services and money management firm.

There are two distinct systems of rating "" LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and Griha "" for green buildings in India now. While LEED rating, applied in 15 countries globally, was developed by US Green Building Council, Washington, and is implemented in India by Indian Green Business Council, managed by CII Green Building Centre (CII GBC), while Griha is an indigenous rating system developed and implemented by The Energy Research Institute, New Delhi.

As of September 2007, 17 projects covering 4.13 million sq ft were certified as green under the LEED rating system. These buildings are present mostly in large metropolitan cities like Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Delhi NCR, besides smaller cities like Kochi and Gulbarga.

Chennai leads the green building pack with eight projects and 67.3 per cent by way of total space volumes. Kolkata comes second with 15.7 per cent, followed by Delhi NCR at 8.7 per cent, while Mumbai clocks 2.9 per cent, followed closely by Kochi with 2.4 per cent and Hyderabad with 2.2 per cent share, said the report, quoting CII GBC data.

This scenario is likely to change significantly in future if one considers the emerging trends among registered buildings coming up. The data available for registered buildings in the pipeline as of September 2007, reveal there are 70 projects registered under both the LEED and GRIHA, comprising 32.22 million sq ft.

Mumbai tops the list based on regional distribution with 17.58 per cent share of the cumulative area under registered buildings, followed by Hyderabad (16.27 per cent) and Chennai (16.11 per cent), which today leads in terms of certified buildings.

The regional distribution reveals the emergence of a more widespread green building phenomenon in terms of geographic footprint in the country, compared to the existing scene in certified green buildings.

Apart from major metropolitan cities, the projects registered for green building certification have spread to 12 smaller cities and towns like Asansol, Trichy, Aligarh, Dehradun, Rohtak, Surat, Nashik, Jabalpur and Navsari, among others, the report said.

IT parks and corporate offices are expected to dominate the future green building scenario, comprising over 71 per cent of the area under registered projects for green certification, there is also the clear possibility of several new asset types like residences, hospitals and hotels entering the green building basket in the coming years. Such projects are already in the process of getting registered for green rating, the report notes.

The report says the first few examples of large infrastructure and township development projects going green are also emerging. The Hyderabad International Airport Terminal has been registered under LEED and an integrated township in Asansol, West Bengal has been registered for green certification.

Given the nascence of the sector in India, it is possible green buildings may require higher intial investments, but these cost increments are offset by far lower operating costs over the long term through savings in terms of lower energy and water bills as well as lower maintenance costs. However, the captial cost of going green also depends on the level of rating (solver, gold or platinum) a project aspires for.

The report has also unveiled the savings accomplished by Technopolis, a 650,000-sq ft IT park in Kolkata. This gold-rated IT park has recorded a 35.57 per cent reduction in overall energy requirements, reflecting estimated savings of Rs 4.35 crore annually, thereby reducing its 'Green payback' period to around two years.

Apart from these savings, green projects can also generate revenues by trading carbon credits for real money under the CDM (Clean Development Mechanism).

Though getting carbon credits is a rigorous process involving international rating agencies, it is emerging as an alternative revenue option for many certified green projects.