CII body's green-building ratings misleading, not up to government standards: CSE

Claims several gold-, silver- and platinum-rated buildings cannot qualify even for one star label of Bureau of Energy Efficiency

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on Monday questioned the voluntary building rating system Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) developed by the US Green Building Council.

“The data put out by the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), responsible for certifying LEED buildings, on the energy consumption of large commercial buildings rated silver, gold and platinum are misleading. Several cannot qualify for one star under the programme of the government’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) that ranks buildings based on their energy efficiency when operational,” CSE said.

The IGBC is a part of the Confederation of Indian Industry. The CSE conducted a study, Building sense: beyond the green façade of sustainable habitat, based on the data put out by the IGBC on its website (later removed, CSE added) and found certain LEED-rated buildings had the least energy-efficiency (one star) according to the BEE standards..

The study is based on the data released by IGBC for 50 of 500 buildings rated. "Nearly half of the day use office buildings and around half of the IT buildings which work for extended hours cannot qualify for even one star label under the BEE's star labelling programme. Thus, these buildings designed to be energy efficient could not meet the bar for performance," CSE said.

CSE said that many state governments give fiscal incentives and extra build up area to developers to get their buildings rated under the LEED mechanism. "If the problem of under performance after construction is not addressed immediately with effective official monitoring and penalty, this can legitimise massive resource inefficiency in the new built up area," CSE said.