As the climate changes there is a danger that current buildings in terms of design, location, use of building materials, and technology may not be suitable keeping in mind various impacts like rising sea levels, increased occurrence of severe weather events, increasing natural disasters and severe water shortages. Also, building material choices are 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, utilization, and even thereafter. 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.

Attention is now shifting towards a low carbon climate resilient (LCCR) development that looks at both mitigation measure against climate change and adaptation measure to deal with the impacts of the change. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has identified this sector as being one of the cheapest avenues for mitigating climate change. As a response to the global attention on climate change, the Indian Government has taken steps to initiate a low carbon growth trajectory. The National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency and National Mission for Sustainable Habitat propose solutions for buildings and urban infrastructure. A neglected aspect is climate proofing i.e. adaptation measures in the habitat sector against natural disasters at 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 Ministries of Rural Development, Panchayati Raj and Human Resources Development, have articulated the need to incorporate ‘climate change’ in rural and semi-urban infrastructure development and reduce the demand for energy and resources required in the processes. Further, the Ministry of Rural Development intends to fill the gap in rural housing in an ecologically responsible manner by requesting state governments to develop region specific construction techniques.

Thus the policy intent is very clear. But due to lack of information and research in this field, no specific actions were taken to reduce or mitigate the damage. However, there is a lack of customized information and knowledge available on alternate technologies and their benefits (financial and environmental). While low carbon climate resilient concepts are proclaimed to have multiple benefits, there is no method for assessment, quantification and comparison. Also the huge existing capacity gaps have been a barrier to address these issues. Technical capacity building is a key gap in the sector. Discussions with stakeholders reveal that there is a lack of adequate opportunities available to build and strengthen skills in the area.

Another very important aspect is that of creating awareness about low carbon climate resilent concepts, technologies and tools among all stakeholders especially the end users. While architects have heard of alternate technologies, most developers and home builders have not and are unwilling to deviate from conventional energy and resource intensive technologies. A pull factor will be created when people demand or accept alternate technologies on par with conventional ones with respect to quality, costs and aesthetics.

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). Some policy imperatives for knowledge are :