Go Green-Its not expensive!
Green homes have become the latest fad in real estate sector. These days, every project come decked with a label of green building. Ever wondered what a green building is? Well, it is what the well-meaning professional calls greenwash! Yes, there are many who are putting these labels, but are not actually willing to work toward making for energy efficiency truly in the sense of achieving urban sustainability.
But having said that, any billboard or brochure of a building company claiming that it has a green certification or is affixing the logo of the Indian Green Building Council or other certifying authority is governed by certain regulations to ensure that some very basic measures are taken for achieving reduction and demand for fresh water and for energy. The focus areas of all such certification for a building to go green are energy, water, and waste management. The guidelines for implementing such system are reasonably clear. The Indian Green Building Council (www.igbc.in) has much to offer in these directions. There are a couple of other rating systems also available right now in India.
As Green homes are often considered to be costlier, one question often asked is that are green homes for the budget buyers or only for the premium and luxury segment? Well, green homes are not expensive. As a builder, the approach to design has to be far more efficient. At ZED the way we build is radically different from most others, yet we use the same sets of skills that are available in the construction sector. Our homes look the same because we don’t like to test market acceptance with buildings that “look ecofriendly”. We have homes from Rs 25 lakhs in certain enclaves to as much as Rs 2 crores.
Indian market is also moving towards the concept of green housing. Today, we have breached the 2 billion square feet mark on certified green buildings! This has been achieved in less than 4 to 5 years across a swathe of building segments – commercial, residential, hospitals, hotels, factory buildings and such.
Clearly the building industry is beginning to see the need for making such change, though builders took their time to respond to the need.
The customer has not yet begun to ask for these benefits, but when such energy-efficient features are provided, she is beginning to see its advantages. The Indian Green Building Council alone has set a target of 25 billion square feet by 2025, as certified green buildings go. The total number of buildings today in India built over all time is about 25 billion square feet. This number is headed toward reaching 100 billion square feet by 2030. This means an exponential increase in the consumption of all natural resources if as many buildings have to be created in the 15 years ahead. How will India battle this is the question that is before us. Here’s where green buildings assume immense significance.
Currently, we have a presence in Karnataka and a large presence in Chennai with a trail-blazing 450-homes project that bring grid-free homes to Chennai for the first time. In a hot and humid region such as that coastal city, ZED RIA offers air-conditioning which comes at 20 per cent the cost of running a regular air-conditioner, and does not cost the resident initially in terms of installation. We absorb the cost without losing on our margins, which are important to run the company. We have no water supply grid, we have no waste water grid, and we have only 30 per cent from the external grid for energy. We have no solid waste going out.
The wet waste at the ZedRia campus gets converted into compost, all dry waste types of material are packed back into local scientific landfills that we create within the campus. The ZedRia campus will be the first of its kind in Chennai. For BCIL it would be the largest in the sense that the number of homes at ZedRia is about 450 – the largest among all ZED enclaves so far. These homes are available at as little as Rs 22 lakhs to about Rs 90 lakhs. They are affordable and they bring a mix of economic segments and social segments. The healthy legislation in Chennai makes this possible.
We will be not going into North India as we see it today. Clearly the South has enough growing urban markets for us to be covering. You have to remember that no builder can build beyond certain number of homes at a time. That brings a constraint to any builder. Buildings take time to be created. We will be looking at some of the busy hubs in the south of India.
We are neutral to going to the north. There has been interest shown by some people in Pune, for us to come over and start something. Gujarat is a possibility. NCR around the Capital can be a possibility since there is a serious shortage of energy, water, and waste in that region too. Anywhere where there is a crisis of this kind, ZED Homes will win.
Chandrashekar Hariharan
The writer steers Biodiversity Conservation India, the Bengaluru-based pioneer of ZED homes.
The views expressed in this article are the author´s own.
