WHY & HOW OF GREEN BUILDING MATERIALS
Recently concluded COP27 once again declared built environment as a critical solution provider for a zero-emissions future and affirmed that the sector has the climate solutions ready to scale now. Rightly, so, to combat this challenge, green building materials are touted as the solution to fighting climate change. With new buildings and construction being mapped for the future, the real estate sector has been a major contributor to 38% of the global CO2 emissions. As we transition to renewable and recycled products, there are concerns over the environmental impact of building products and technologies. What are the challenges of the green building materials segment and the expectations from the government? Bhushan Sawhney – Executive President and Chief Business Officer, Polycab India Ltd. - The biggest challenge is awareness. People are not aware of the danger that the environment is constantly facing. Though countries are having meetings and agreements on climate change, many just ignore the green and eco-friendly commodities for the inexpensive ones. Another issue is the lack of regulatory authorities and bodies which would enforce or incentivize the practice of installing green products. Along with this, the absence of norms in the standards set by regulatory bodies concerning eco-friendliness and sustainability is yet another pain point. Sumit Padmakar Joshi, CEO & MD, Signify South Asia - The biggest challenge faced by the green building segment is the current taxation structure for LED lighting products, which has been recently increased from 12% to 18%. This will act as deterrent in the adoption of LED products amongst the lower income group of consumers, who are still using GLS incandescent bulbs. Amit Gossain, Managing Director, KONE Elevators India - There are many challenges in India's green building materials segment, but it all comes down to the lack of awareness of green building awareness practices. Many developers and consumers are still unaware of the best green building practices. While green building materials are present and are in abundance, many still resort to traditional methods. The second issue is getting clearance and approvals on time. While the Indian government has taken many strides towards accepting green, a lot remains to be done. The cost of green certification is high, and green building compliance makes the approval process extremely difficult, which deters many developers from going through the process. The third reason is the lack of skilled manpower. Adopting green solutions requires adapting to the changing technologies, and many experts have not yet upskilled in this direction. It creates a barrier that slows down the adoption of green buildings in India. The final and perhaps most important issue is the high costs. Green building materials are expensive. And the prices have only risen after the economic blowback of the pandemic. Such issues deter people from adopting it. Bhupesh Arora, Business Head Digital Energy, Schneider Electric, Greater India - The major challenge in the green building materials segment is identifying and extracting enough eco-friendly resources that would be sufficient throughout the lifecycle of the building. Lack of awareness is the biggest challenge today to adopt Green buildings materials. Few people still perceive it as an expensive option. Change in the behavior to unlearn traditional methods & adopt digital products, this will require to operate out of their comfort zone. Lack of skilled labor to adopt to this fast-changing technology is another hindrance to adopt Green Building practices. For organizations to be encouraged towards investments in green building materials, there needs to be support by the state government and other regulatory bodies in the form of incentivized green projects. Though the present day incentives have been tabled, greater financial provision is required to promote the use of green building materials in India. Anjan Mukherjee – Territory Head - Commercial Business – Lutron India - In most cases, green building materials are more expensive than traditional materials and there is always pushback from buyers due to cost consideration. India Green Building Council (IGBC) has been closely working with Central and State Government agencies to promote the green building movement in the country. Some of the Central and State Government agencies are very supportive and offer incentives for going green. For example, the Government of Punjab offers an additional 5% Floor Area Ratio (FAR) free of charge for projects which are rated Gold or above by IGBC. What are the latest eco-friendly solutions introduced by the company and the sustainable manufacturing processes adopted? Dr. H.C. Mario Schmidt, Managing Director, Lingel Windows and Doors Technologies Private Limited - For our two major product lines, UPVC and Aluminium, both raw materials are 100% recyclable, and the recycling chain of vendors has been developed for many years now so that whatever cutting waste or left-over material in terms of profiles gets picked up and sold back to the raw material vendors. This can be used to create new materials such as UPVC or aluminium. Because our UPVC profiles are steel reinforced, the steel reinforced cut waste pieces are also recycled. Similarly, in the case of glass, which is a trading material, if any pieces break during processing, they are returned to the glass processor and reused. The same holds true for EPDM gaskets, PVC packers, and other items. All materials used get back to the value chain produced at Lingel. Once a product’s lifecycle is over, the entire product can be dismantled to its component and it can be recycled as well. When we talk about energy savings, our thermally broken aluminium, which we are importing from Germany, and UPVC have similar good properties. We can only recommend to all our valid customers that using an insulated glass, especially when the air conditioner is being used at night, insulated glass plays a major role in reducing your energy consumption by almost 50%. We developed a formula in which we investigate or demonstrate to our customers, based on their window area and frame material selection, what the actual energy savings are when using insulated glass or low-E glazing versus an ordinary single glass unit. Anjan Mukherjee – Lutron has just launched Athena - a dynamic system that combines intelligent lighting controls and shades with connected apps to optimize lighting environment and energy efficiency of any space. Sustainability is embedded in the life cycle of all Lutron products. Our products are designed to last for long with superior quality. All our packing boxes are made from 100% recyclable cardboard. Our Athena system is scalable and will always stay current with automatic software updates, downloading new features when they're made available. It is future-proof and new components can be added anytime when new needs arise later. Bhushan Sawhney - Polycab Green Wire is our standard holder towards sustainability and environment-friendly measures. The energy efficiency of green wires helps save a significant portion of electrical energy which is otherwise wasted in its transmission. Our manufacturing setup in Halol is being equipped with solar panels, which would cut the energy requirement from the grid. This step will increase our reliance on renewable sources, thus reducing our carbon footprint. Polycab undertakes multiple corporate social activities where we provide and promote solar panels to power small domestic setups. This is yet another way in our fight for a sustainable future. Bhupesh Arora - Embracing the green product principle envisages achieving sustainability from design to manufacturing to disposal. We’ve addressed these issues in our own company by launching the Green Premium program in 2008. The Green Premium program stands for our commitment to deliver customer-valued sustainable performance. We further enhanced this program in 2022 to help our customers reach new levels of sustainable performance. For us, the Green Premium program is a driver of sustainable business performance. Many of our automation and robotics products, including Modicon PLCs, LexiumTM MC12 multi carrier, and Human Machine Interface (HMI), are Green Premium. In fact, today, more than 75% of Schneider’s product sales come from Green Premium products. One of them, the SF6 free circuit breaker, is a great example of applying green product principles for the entire life cycle of a product. It’s significant because medium voltage switchgear (very common electrical equipment) has a long-life span (up to 30 years) and SF6 is the most potent greenhouse gas of all, with a global warming potential 23,500 times higher than CO2. Instead of SF6 our new circuit breakers use pure air and vacuum technology. Amit Gossain - KONE DX Class Elevators, the world’s first digitally connected elevators offer innovative and eco-friendly vertical transport for buildings of all types. Whether elevators are needed for the residential regions or the tallest skyscrapers, we aim to make sure that people flow greener and better. The escalators and auto walks we deliver set the standards for eco-efficiency, safety, and visual design. Created using sustainably sourced materials, escalators and auto walks are ready to serve all types of environments, from offices and hotels to busy transport hubs. Underpinning it all is our laser focus on green buildings. As a result, we have 23 elevator models with A class ISO 25745 energy efficiency ratings, and eight escalator models have received an A+++ classification in terms of energy efficiency. These elevators are retrofitted with LED lights and a novel energy regeneration technology that saves up to 70% of energy. And our current machine room-less volume Elevator, the KONE Monospace 500, is over 90% more efficient compared to what we had back in the 90s. Sumit Padmakar Joshi - Signify launched its Interact professional connected lighting system that enables data to be collected via sensors embedded in luminaires. The system’s Application Program Interface (API) enables the integration of connected lighting with other management systems like HVAC, Air quality. Apart from offering remote lighting management, the system also offers data insights and analytics to improve the overall energy efficiency of the entire building. Another interesting sustainable innovation is our 3D printed Philips luminaires range, which is made from recycled polycarbonate materials and has a 47% lower carbon footprint compared to a traditional metal luminaire. The finished product has the high quality you expect from a Philips luminaire but 2/3 weight, which translates to a 35% reduction in the carbon footprint when shipping. It offers customers bespoke lighting designs that can also be recycled at the end of their life, thereby supporting a circular economy. We've also removed all plastic components such as metalized films, plastic laminations, plastic blisters, pet film windows, polybags, and bubble bags from our consumer product packaging and replaced them with recycled paper-based materials, such as paper bags and paper boxes. Outlook for green products in India Amit Gossain - During the past couple of years, the number of sustainable products available in the consumer market have grown. People are now more willing than ever to accept green products for the sake of the environment, and to curb their energy costs. Nearly six years ago, Goldman Sachs predicted that India’s organic personal care market will grow to INR 1000 crore, and it has happened. What is looking even better is the rising adoption rate of green building solutions. According to Times Property, there has been a 37% increase in green buildings in the last five years. Part of the reason it has happened is the desire to lengthen the life of an infrastructure, whether it is a residential or commercial property. Buyers have started to see the value in the green, and the real estate community is happy to oblige. Those who are aware of the positives of the green solutions are going beyond providing the usual green initiatives, like materials, but are also focusing on making the buildings more architecturally attune to the natural ecosystem, like the installation of natural ventilation. I believe that all of it will usher us into a greener India where there will be green alternatives to every product in the market and the adoption from end users will happen over a period, in tune with the awareness created. Bhupesh Arora - The construction sector is evolving, and the current global demands will accelerate the transformation. You will need to harness the power of the all-digital, all-electric world with a more sustainable, resilient, efficient, and people-centric building if you want to survive and even prosper as a developer, owner, and operator. At Schneider Electric, we can help you keep up with trends through our sustainability offerings. The future of green products depends on Sustainable designs which seeks to limit the negative impact on the environment. These sustainable designs are done while keeping building occupants’ health and comfort in mind, improving building performance. The main idea circles around reducing the consumption of non-renewable resources by the building operations, minimizing waste, and creating healthy living environments for the residents. The emergence of smart electrical distribution systems that incorporates digital intelligence into its core, has been a game-changer when it comes to cost control and lower carbon emissions. On average, electrical systems represent about 10% to 15% of the overall new building project budget with the digitization and software elements representing only a small fraction of the total cost. However, that small investment proves critical to achieving the greater goals of lower operating costs and low energy consumption. Digital Twin is being adopted widely to evaluate the efficiency of buildings, by analysing target versus actual occupancy levels, setpoints for HVAC can be adjusted where needed to reduce energy consumption. To help maximize building efficiency, optimize comfort and productivity, and boost building value, EcoStruxure Building securely connects hardware, software, and services across an Ethernet IP backbone. We are prepared to accompany you on the path to decarbonization and take on this challenging. If green products are not part of India’s future, then our future is bleak. It is expected that there will be a surge in the uptake of renewable, energy-conserving, and eco-friendly wires. Additionally with the growth and awareness of authorities and bodies like the IGBC and LEED, the trend for eco-friendly products is on an upward trajectory. Bhushan Sawhney The lighting industry is an important stakeholder in the built environment and offers a simple solution for reducing the carbon footprint of buildings. By switching to LED and then further upgrading to connected lighting, companies can achieve up to 70% savings on their electricity costs for lighting. Sumit Padmakar Joshi Reducing the taxes on green construction materials and cost of green certification would make green buildings not just an ethical but a lucrative prospect for real estate developers. Furthermore, green building compliances can be streamlined so that getting clearance isn’t difficult. Also very important is skilling the human resources in green construction methods and materials. These tasks are achievable if all stake holders converge and work on a common agenda. Amit Gossain It’s important to realize that consumers are the drivers of green product. According to a study done in December 2021, customers are willing to pay between 5% to 10% more to have access to sustainable products, compared to non-sustainable products. Bhupesh Arora In 2003, only 20,000 sq.ft. Green built-up area in the country was registered with IGBC and now over 9.75 billion sq.ft has been registered as of Sep 2022. The future of green products in India is bright and the demand will keep growing. Anjan Mukherjee We are the only company in India as of now that calculates the carbon footprint of the material. Every quotation clearly specifies the carbon footprint, and we have made arrangements with local NGO's so that whatever amount is contributed to make a purchase carbon footprint neutral, it gets donated and trees get planted. Dr. h.c. Mario Schmidt
Tags : green building materials Bhushan Sawhney – Executive President and Chief Business Officer Polycab India Ltd Sumit Padmakar Joshi CEO & MD Signify South Asia Amit Gossain Managing Director KONE Elevators India Bhupesh Arora Business Head Digital Energy Schneider Electric Greater India Anjan Mukherjee – Territory Head - Commercial Business – Lutron India Dr. H.C. Mario Schmidt Managing Director Lingel Windows and Doors Technologies Private Limited