How Real estate industry is driven by the force of Sustainability?
How do we cope up with scarcity? This had been in question for pretty long now, especially a country like India where her resources are scarce ever since the British left. Very few things in India have been quoted as not and a large chunk of population is still suffering without water, space, food and electricity. The basic amenities are at stake and the rest of us are surviving with a bit of currency power we have got but too far, its’ not going to help. In Bangalore, we are at the edge of falling apart and one of the fast diminishing resource is space.
On top of the scarcity, massive levels of destruction are happening to nature every day. Cutting trees, dumping plastic, mining and encroachment of land everywhere is just eating into the environment. How do we put it to an end and what can be the problem behind this? To all such queries, our reply should be sustainability. When we start focusing on long term benefits, we will be out of the ‘soup’ we are in right now. When our actions can be in sync with nature and we are driven by the fact that nature is also a limited source of sustenance we would reach the problem solving level.
Technology
Real estate and sustainability should go hand in hand because on one side, we are constructing on earth and converting lands into buildings. On the other side, this is space for accommodating people in the world. This has to be kept in mind and the use of environment has to be in the safe and effective manner. To put a tab on us destroying the nature with all those machines, we should have an agenda to minimise harm. Building strong structures and being strict about such quality controls are very necessary because that is long term benefit. It’s a part of sustainability process when you are saving money and time for the future, instead of building a low quality building, prone to even petty damage. We are not able to live without technology, but now the state is technology has encroached extremely into our lives and nature is at the verge of extinction.
Eco-friendly practices
These days, much environment friendly and sustainable alternatives have come up like green property, rainwater harvesting and also monitoring carbon related issues in the ecosystem. What has emerged as a sustainable and eco-friendly technique off late is the concept of green property. Green property frequently delivers superior finance returns and market performance. Green property broadly focuses on the concern affecting long-term value generation and short term profitability. Companies are becoming more concerned about environmental issues and their corporate images which would not reflect the ‘not so green’ attitude.
There are also organizations who inculcate a kind of responsibility with the employees by promoting cloth bags, paper cups and not using plastic products.
“This is one industry where we are totally interacting and studying the nature always. The changes, the limitations and the potential are scrutinised and efforts are developed to interact better with nature. Apart from planting trees, we also use a technology called Kumkang to build homes and it is a Korean technology which takes less time to build homes. Their advanced build up is also largely resistant to earthquakes. Since calamities are on a rise, our quality should also be upgraded.”
Urbanisation
Everybody knew Bangalore as a green city, loaded with gardens, sidelined with trees and parks. Now with very high level of pollution and aggressive urbanisation, the city is left with meagre space. Bangalore Habba was a perfect example of the community of Bangalore coming together for 15 days and celebrating arts and culture of the city. City’s lung space and green spots have to be revamped and expanded to let the air breathe.
Sustainability
The challenge is in creating infrastructure that can be used well beyond what its meant for. Most of the stadiums that were built when Bangalore hosted the National Games are all exhibition venues now, but that was not the purpose they were built for. London hosted the Olympics with its existing infrastructure and took most of the events outdoors to the roads and lakes and parks that they already had. Much space in Bangalore is not put to good use and effective utilisation of the property will bring in much required answers to the solutions in the city.
There are different, several alternatives to the easy and dangerous stints we take with nature for quick results. Sustainability is the key in real estate industry and smart management of air, water and space all accords to the environment we live in. Post the Environment Day; all of us are not bothered about planting trees or dumping waste. It’s all in our long term goals and agenda that we plan for sustainable actions for nature. Let us pledge to use the environment friendly practices rather than easy ones, which are really toxic.
Raja Mukherjee, Sales and Marketing Head of Concorde Group
The views expressed in this article are author´s own
