| Constructing Change with Green Buildings
The Boom The construction sector worldwide currently accounts for more than 11 pe As an emerging market and economy, there is an influx of investment in the infrastructure and construction sector. The strong economic growth, rising population and rapid urbanisation are key drivers for accelerated construction. This sector has been steadily contributing about 8 per cent to the national GDP 2 over the last five years. The current size of the construction industry in India is an estimated USD 70.8 billion3.With rising temperatures and erratic weather patterns, climate change is one of the most pressing problems facing the world today. Threats associated with climate change are further compounded by the increasing pressure placed by the exponentially growing population on our natural resources. The construction sector in particular has been identified as a high priority segment for action on this front. The Footprint The building and construction sector contributes up to one-third of the global annual greenhouse gas emissions. In absolute terms, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report estimated building-related global GHG emissions to be around 8.6 million metric tonnes CO 2 equivalent in 2004. Buildings also consume over 40 per cent of all the energy used and account for the largest share of natural resources used at 32 per cent, in terms of land use and material extraction.Given the massive growth in new construction – especially in emerging economies and the inefficiencies of existing building stock worldwide – if nothing is done, greenhouse gas emissions from buildings are expected to more than double in the next 20 years 4. Add to this, the increase in activity due to reconstruction processes to rehabilitate climate refugees, especially due to freak weather events, and the resource and carbon footprints of the industry skyrocket.Though the current resource and carbon footprint of the sector in India is not very large, the predicted, acceleration in construction activity will substantially contribute towards appending it. The sector emits about 22 per cent of the total annual CO 2 emissions. Eighty per cent of the construction sector emissions result mainly from the products and industrial processes, and the four energy intensive building materials – steel, cement, bricks and lime. This impact is set to only increase with a housing shortage of about 40 million houses in the rural spaces alone, for the Twelfth Five Year Period of 2012-2017.The Changing Climate With its high climate vulnerability, South Asia has been assessed as one of the world’s hotspot for natural hazards. The region is already experiencing an array of climate change impacts, including glacial melt, forest fires, rising sea levels, floods, droughts, mountain and coastal soil erosion, landslides, windstorms, saline water intrusion, sea surges, and cyclones. Between 1990 and 2008, more than 750 million people – 50 per cent of South Asia’s population – were affected by one or the other type of disaster, resulting in almost 230,000 deaths and about $45 billion in damages 5. Due to its infrastructure density, India had the biggest share of damages – $26 billion or over 50 per cent of total damages for the region6.As the climate changes, there is a danger that current buildings in terms of design, location, use of building materials, and technology, etc., may not be suitable, keeping in mind the various impacts like rising sea levels, increased occurrence of severe weather events, increasing natural disasters, severe water shortages, and other natural calamities. Also, the choice of building materials is important in sustainable design because of the extensive scope for impacting sustainability by reducing the embodied energy of the building materials during their extraction, processing, transportation, utilisation, and even thereafter. This is a region where the global responsibility for addressing climate change should be particularly stressed and one can clearly make a case for how countries that have contributed relatively so little to the causes driving climate change stand to lose so much from its adverse effects. Floods account for over 50 per cent of the more than 900 disaster events reported in the region in the last four decades. Droughts – though only account for 2 per cent of the total number of events – hit the most number of people; over 50 per cent of the total disaster-affected population.
The Policy Response There has been recognition at a policy level on this issue in the country. As far back as in 1998, the National Housing Policy of India recognised the unsustainable consumption of natural resources like land, water, soil, energy, forests and minerals in construction. The National Action Plan for Climate Change (NAPCC), 2008 provides clarity on key measures required to achieve low carbon development 7. The National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency and National Mission for Sustainable Habitat proposed solutions for buildings and urban infrastructure.More recently, as a response to the global attention on climate change, ahead of the International Climate Summit in Copenhagen in November 2009, the Indian Government has announced to voluntarily reduce its emission intensity by 20-25 per cent on a purely domestic level between 2005 and 2020. The Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-2017) also focuses on achieving a low carbon inclusive growth. 8A neglected aspect is climate proofing, i.e., adaptation measures in the habitat sector against natural disasters at the planning and design level. Another lacuna is the lack of attention towards the 70 million (population) strong rural spaces and small towns which are emerging as areas of high growth. The lack of information and research in this field has retarded specific actions to reduce or mitigate the damage. Also, the huge existing capacity gaps have been a barrier to address these issues. Our Approach Climate risk has a major potential impact on economic development; many of the measures that can be adopted to strengthen countries’ and regions’ resilience to those risks are themselves economic development measures 9. Attention is now shifting towards a low carbon climate resilient development that looks at both mitigation measures against climate change and adaptation measures to deal with the impacts of the change. The movement towards a Low Carbon, Climate Resilient (LC-CR) development pathway is dependent on creating an enabling environment focusing on three key factors of knowledge (building a technology base), finance (devising innovative mechanisms) and policy (strengthening the institutional framework).The contribution of the construction sector to climate change and its vulnerability to climate change impacts exposures ranging from physical infrastructure damage to occupant safety is well established. Building resilience and adaptability in terms of capacity of a building to continue to function and operate under acute conditions, such as extreme temperatures, sea level rises, natural disasters, etc., with the optimum use of available natural resources is a great challenge. On the other hand, UNFCCC has identified the sector as being one of the cheapest avenues for mitigating climate change. In order to address the knowledge and capacity gap among various stakeholders in the habitat space, the Development Alternatives (DA) Group, in collaboration with the Climate and Knowledge Development Network (CDKN), has embarked on an initiative for ‘Knowledge Development and Dissemination for Promoting Low Carbon Construction in the Rural Areas and Small Towns of India and South Asia’. The principal objective is to put in place a model of capacity building and decision making by the relevant agencies that demonstrates the integration of ‘climate change concerns’ (of adaptation to the impacts and mitigation by way of low carbon development processes), into design, planning and construction practices in rural and semi-urban areas of India. The initiative is consolidating knowledge in the area of ‘climate responsive’ development and customising it for application in the construction sector in the specific geographical context of coastal, semi-arid and wet-hilly areas. This knowledge is being packaged into region-specific modules for building capacity of policy makers, building professionals and artisans. The modules will be implemented in the targeted geographical regions – Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Orissa – through networking with local agencies such as NGOs and government departments. The Way Forward In spite of the stark differences in the geophysical and socio-economic characteristics of the country, there are commonalities in the critical areas where capacities need to be built. Also, capacity building across the three levels of policy, design and planning and artisans has to be complimentary in nature with the policy measures, creating an enabling environment for action at the other two levels. They key aspects that need to be kept in mind are: • Efficient management of natural resources – soil, water and forests (depending on the region) from the point of view of providing raw materials for construction with minimal environmental degradation • Using low-carbon building materials to ensure a more judicious use of natural resources and energy intensive materials like cement and steel • Policy making and planning for resilience of buildings in the face of perceived threats from extreme weather events due to changing patterns of climate • Utilisation of regional industrial wastes in manufacture of building materials • Integrating quality upgrading features in traditional construction techniques of the region which invariably use natural raw materials by knowledge and skill enhancement • Promotion of low carbon passive design measures to mitigate impacts of extreme temperatures due to projected climate change impacts • Assessing the ‘carbon trajectory’ of building practices in the region There is a need to encourage long-term planning and policy in areas such as spatial planning to reduce vulnerability, which will require strong institutions, good governance and effective policy enforcement. While concepts like energy efficiency, embodied energy, disaster-risk reduction, resource efficiencies and carbon footprint are independently discussed at various fora, there is a need to integrate them into the planning and design of habitat structures. q Kriti Nagrath (Endnotes)
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r cent of the global GDP and is expected to reach 13.2 per cent of world’s GDP by 2020, growing by 67 per cent from the present $7.2 trillion to $12 trillion by 2020. As per estimates, seven countries – India, China, the US, Indonesia, Canada, Australia and Russia – will account for two-thirds of growth in global construction to 2020