Green building movement gathers momentum

The green building movement is rapidly spreading across the globe. The World Green Building Council, which spearheads the movement through its member-country chapters, is seeing more and more countries coming forward to become its members.

Speaking to Business Standard, Che Wall, chairman of World Green Building Council (WGBC), said that green building practices are those that help reduce demand on all natural resources, help re-use the available materials and recycle all waste.

He said that around 40 countries including China had recently expressed their willingness to impart green building practices through setting up of their own councils. The WGBC, which was launched in 2002 with just four countries, has now nine member-countries.

With the member-countries "" US, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Japan, Canada, Australia, Taiwan and India "" already actively advocating green building practices in the construction industry, the addition of China would soon see WGBC covering more than half the global population in just two years of its inception, Che Wall said to a query if the number and impact was not small. Che Wall was in the city to participate in the 'Green Building Congress 2004' held on August 27-28.

The green building movement, which lays emphasis on optimum utilisation of energy, water and cleaner building materials, is fast endearing itself to the construction industry and the governments for environmental and the economic impacts, Che Wall said.

In this regard, he pointed out that reduction in operation costs and higher property realisation by the real estate developers in countries like the US, Canada and Australia was impelling their counterparts in other countries to stake claim to their green building status.

"It is getting very common in these countries to come across advertisements on the real estate buildings proudly declaring themselves as having green ratings and seeking higher realisation. The growing consciousness among the dwellers about the benefits of green building is already getting translated into nearly 25 per cent higher price realisation," the WGBC chairman said.

Various companies that produce building materials are also getting onto the bandwagon of green movement by turning their products more eco-friendly.

The impact is so much that the University of New Castle in Australia has started a master's course in green building techniques. And it is only a matter of time before the other varsities and other member-chapters to realise the importance of covering the subject in various curricula of technical streams, he observed.

On the new initiatives at WGBC, Che Wall said that the future focus would be on taking the green building practices into homes. WGBC on its own does not set any standards for ratings of buildings or homes and leaves it to the choice of its chapters to engage the third-party service.

Though in the US, the local chapter has come out with some kind of rating the homes, the norms need to be made simpler so as to be widely accepted, he said.

"Though UK is yet to become a member of WGBC, the government there accords recognition to eco homes. On the similar lines, if the respective governments encourage the movement, it would give a great boost to the emergence of green homes across the world," he said.

He was all praise for the Andhra Pradesh government to come forward to include both the government and the private buildings under a green building code.

The WGBC chairman said that the Andhra Pradesh government had set itself as role models for the other governments with "its very pro-active approach. The greenest building that is located on the Hyderabad outskirts would now be made popular among all the chapters to take inspiration from how the public-private partnership could boost the movement," he added.