Green building space at 648 mn sft

The country’s green building space has been growing exponentially since 2003 when it started with a registered green built-up area of 20,000 sft to the current level of 648 million sft. The figures suggest an average of 40-fold increase each year over the last eight years.

According to S Raghupathy, who heads the CII Godrej Green Business Centre (GBC) here, India now has a variety of certified and registered green buildings including airports, convention centres, hospitals, hotels, banks, factories and government buildings.

Green buildings save 40-50 per cent in energy and 20-30 per cent of water. Among intangible benefits are enhanced ventilation, better views and day lighting.

India currently has 1,050 registered green buildings and 147 certified ones, the CII Godrej GBC said in a release on Friday (April 22), which is observed as the Earth Day worldwide.

Raghupathy said green buildings are financially attractive. “For a platinum rated green building, the construction cost would be five to eight per cent higher but the incremental cost gets paid back in three-four years,” he said.

$100 billion market
The Indian green building products and technologies market is expected to touch $ 100 billion by 2012.

“With 80 per cent of India yet to be built, the next two decades would present a great opportunity for the country to pursue the path of green buildings,” Raghupathy said.