New Delhi – Dr. Farooq Abdullah, Union Minister of New and Renewable Energy, while delivering his special address at the National Conference on “Green Design: Buildings and Habitats”, here today, said that the private sector, including real estate builders, will take a pledge to adopt green buildings in their future constructions and help the nation in mitigating the green house gasses emissions.
The Minister informed that new educational institutes like IITs, IIMs are registered with GRIHA to make green educational campuses. Shri Deepak Gupta, Secretary, Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, Dr. R. K. Pachauri, Director General of TERI, apart from other stakeholders, attended the Conference.
During his address, Dr. Abdullah informed that he would be meeting the leading developers to seek their cooperation in achieving energy security and ecological security of this country through green and sustainable construction activities. He also said that most of the construction in terms of numbers is happening in smaller places where transformation is only possible through inspiration. “I am glad to learn that TERI is coming up with a simple version of GRIHA that helps individuals like you and me to make our new homes green and sustainable,” the Minister added.
The Minister stated that his Ministry is committed to make renewable energy competitive with fossil fuel-based energy, which is a challenge where buildings play a great role in reducing the energy demand and increasing the adoption of off-grid renewable energy technologies.
In his address, Shri Deepak Gupta highlighted that so far 85 projects have already been registered for GRIHA rating certification with 3.95 sq. m built up area and out of which 70 projects are from various government departments, PSUs and educational institutes including AIIMS with a total 2.70 million square meter. He said that his Ministry is promoting the green buildings by providing incentives for registration and professional guidance to ADaRSH, an independent society created for this purpose.
The 2-day (7-8 January) Conference was organized jointly by the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, Government of India, TERI and GRIHA.
About GRIHA
GRIHA is India’s National Rating System for Green buildings; it has been developed by TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) and is endorsed by the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy.
It is based on nationally-accepted energy and environmental principles and seeks to strike a balance between established practices and emerging concepts both national and international.
GRIHA attempts to minimize a building’s resource consumption, waste generation, and overall ecological/environmental impact by comparing them to certain nationally acceptable limits/benchmarks. GRIHA assess a building out of 34 criteria and awards points on a scale of 100. In order to qualify for GRIHA certification, a project must achieve at least 50 points.
Source: PIB Press Release dated January 7, 2011.
