digest sep1

Article: Sustainability
Green Buildings- Buildings with intention!
This month from the sustainability desk, is an article to enlighten our readers on Green Buildings. Green
buildings (also known as sustainable buildings) refer to both a structure and the application of
processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-ef icient throughout a building's lifecycle:
from planning to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and demolition. This
requires close cooperation of the contractor, the architects, the engineers, and the client at all project
stages.
Buildings have extensive direct and indirect impact on the environment. During their construction,
occupancy, renovation, repurposing, and demolition, buildings use energy, water, and raw materials,
generate waste, and emit potentially harmful atmospheric emissions. This prompted for mitigating the
impact of buildings on the natural environment through sustainable design. The Green Building practice
expands and complements the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and
comfort. The objective of green buildings is to reduce the overall impact of the built environment on
human health and the natural environment by:
Ef iciently using energy, water, and other resources
Protecting occupant health and improving occupier's productivity
Reducing waste, pollution and environmental degradation
The push toward sustainable design increased in the 1990s with the creation of Building Research
Establishment's Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), the irst green building rating system in
the U.K. In 2000, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) followed suit and developed and released
criteria also aimed at improving the environmental performance of buildings through its Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system for new construction. Since that irst release,
LEED has continued to grow in prominence and to include rating systems for existing buildings. Others
also responded to the growing interest and demand sustainable designs including the Green Building
Initiative (GBI), which was created to assist the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) in
promoting its Green Building Guidelines for Residential Structures.
There is now a proliferation of standards, rating, and certi ication programs in the marketplace to help
guide, demonstrate, and document efforts to deliver sustainable, high-performance buildings. There are
three primary Rating systems that currently exists in India: Green Rating for Integrated Habitat
Assessment (GRIHA), Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), Bureau of Energy Ef iciency (BEE).
The most criticized issue about constructing green buildings is the cost involved in construction or
refurbishing. Modern technologies and systems tend to cost more money and may not be affordable
every time. In reality most green buildings cost a premium of