Banglaore hosts international sustainability workshop

The second of the Multi-stakeholder Workshops on Sustainability Principles and Reporting for the Construction and Real Estate Sector in the Indian Context, recently concluded in Bangalore on 6th January, 2010.

This workshop was hosted by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), a network based organization and collaborating centre of the United Nations Environment Programme that has pioneered the development of the world's most widely used sustainability reporting framework, The United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI)  Property Working Group, a global platform of financial institutions that collaborate to drive sustainable development to the heart of mainstream property finance, and Cognito, India’s leading sustainability advisory.

The event aimed at increasing the sustainability quotient of construction and real estate industry in India saw participation from construction majors like L&T, Mahindra Lifespaces, HCC, CREDAI Karnataka Chapter, Godrej Properties Ltd, Ozone Group, leading architect firms like Venkataramanan Associates, Chandavarkar & Thacker and global consultants such as E&Y and DNV.

Speaking first, Harsh Purohit, Executive Director, Cognito, set the context of the workshop by introducing the 4 key parameters that are driving sustainability in the Construction and Real Estate Sector – Policies, Protests, Profits and Preservation. He emphasized that sustainability is not about saving the planet, but it is about saving ourselves.

Opening the session on Sustainability and Green Buildings, was Donna McIntire of UNEP SBCI, the celebrated architect known for designing the very 1st LEED v1.0 Platinum project and for greening US embassies around the world. In her talk Donna outlined how buildings as a sector offered the highest GHG Emission Reduction Potential at the lowest costs. She also drew the attention of the participants to the fact that India has the largest number of single family homes and it was the need of the hour to make them energy efficient.

S. Kannapan, Vice-President, L&T  ECC Division, shared an engaging and detailed presentation on key sustainability challenges for the construction industry in India. Comparing the sector to other high growth sectors he pointed out that ‘ Poor R&D and slow adoption of the latest technologies by the construction sector has negatively affected the sustainability quotient of the sector.’ He also added that ‘Like the TRAI the construction industry should too have a non-interfering regulator to standardize practices.’ 

The session on Sustainability Reporting, kicked off with a presentation from Katherine Miles, who was representing the GRI secretariat based in the Netherlands, she outlined the GRI Construction and Real Estate Sector Supplement (CRESS) Project, which aims to tailor the GRI framework, which is the world’s most widely used framework for sustainability reporting, to the needs of the CRE sector. She highlighted that ‘The construction and real estate was the 5th largest reporting sector in 2008’

Beroz Gazdar, Vice President - Infrastructure Development Sector, Mahindra & Mahindra Limited, shared a reporting organization’s perspective and said ‘the sustainability journey at Mahindra began when an FII requested us for our triple-bottom-line report’. She added that the challenge was to cascade the initiative across the organization and how Mahindra had managed to chalk-up 80% awareness in year one itself.

Niyati Sareen, General Manager - Corporate Social Responsibility, Hindustan Construction Company Limited and member of the GRI working group rounded of the sustainability reporting session by sharing with the group their learning from the reporting exercise. She said ‘the key bottleneck to reporting was the lack of big picture awareness amongst data owners. She also added that ‘HCC has adopted the philosophy – Do good to do well & do well to do good.’

The final phase of the workshop saw the participants and presenters being divided into two subgroups to discuss and evolve key sustainability issues facing the sector.