22 Years of Green Building Excellence: IGBC’s 22nd Green Building Congress!

 
 

Kudos to the CII – Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) Team for organizing the 22nd Edition of the Green Building Congress. With the energy, excitement, and hope in the air, it’s clear that we’re on an incredible mission to combat climate change together.

The panel discussion on Enabling Net Zero Transition – Technological Challenges and Opportunity had a cross section of eminent participants Mr.Lakshminarayanan Sankaran (Bangalore International Airport Ltd), Mr. N C Somaiah (Prestige Group), Mr.Kosalraman CJ, AIA, LEED AP, FIIA, LLB, LSSBB (Infrabees Project Management Consultants Pvt Ltd), and Mr.Dr. Dharmik Vaishnav (Gyproc India) and thoughtfully moderated by Kiran Ananth of CII Godrej Green Business Centre

Some thoughts that came out are as follows:-
Are there any major innovation or breakthrough in technologies to achieve Net Zero Energy?

None, no significant breakthrough has happened in the past decade or so. However new trends are emerging both globally and in India which are noteworthy.
🌿 Energy transition: Switch to electricity and hydrogen as a fuel is happening. Mr.Juzer S. Kothari Managing Director of (Conserve Consultants) mentioned a case study on the operating costs savings due to this switch over and how this has paved the past towards Net Zero Energy and Carbon.
🛠️ Utility as a Service: India now has service providers who can offer you any Utility, be it HVAC, water or Renewable Energy, on a rental model with a guarantee on the their performance. A case study of a large asset management company was highlighted which will having a positive cash flow in its first year of operations with this model.

What are the challenges that organizations face in achieving Net Zero for exiting buildings?

Different Net Zeros (carbon, energy, water, waste) have different challenges.
💧Net Zero Water: In our practice we have seen that the main bottle neck is the performance of the rain water harvesting system. For an existing building redoing the rain water harvesting system is indeed challenging.
⚡Net Zero Energy: Here the constraint is the operating energy efficiency. The energy performance index (EPI) is invariably higher than recommended limits to effectively embark on such a project.

Here it is important to note that the IGBC Net Zero Rating System is presently one of the only rating systems which has specified a range of operating efficiencies be it water, energy or carbon. Organizations can check their performance with the values mentioned in the IGBC Net Zero Rating Guides to know where there are and where they can be.

CII Godrej Green Business Centre |CREDAI National |NATIONAL REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL (NAREDCO) |The Indian Institute of Architects |Indian Plumbing Association | B C Harish | Rajasekaran Subramanian |Anand Muthukrishnan |S Karthikeyan
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