Senior ESD consultant Marlon Kobackar: Pitching For Green Buildings For Low Carbon Future

At present our world is witnessing biggest urbanization growth which has necessitated development of urban infrastructure like Integrated Townships, Skyscraper, Roads and Public Utilities etc. However these activities are already putting stress on our depleting natural resources and environment. At the same time accelerated climate changes because of human activities have pressed us to opt for Greener options so that future of our coming generations is not compromised and they have enough options to fulfill their needs.

Green buildings present us with an opportunity where we can substantially reduce our environmental footprint. This will also hedge us against future increase in the cost of utilities/ energy that we normally consume in a building.

In words of Marlon Kobackar, a Senior ESD Consultant and a globally acclaimed sustainability expert, "Green buildings are proofed against increase in utility costs and better positioned to retain their asset value propositions than any traditional buildings. These are the buildings of the low-carbon emission feature and there is enough profit to be made in getting it right in the early steps".

So what is Green Building?

As defined by Environment Protection Agency of USA, "Green Building is the practice of utilizing processes and creating structures that are environmentally creditworthy and resource-effective all throughout any building's life-cycle from planning to designing, construction and operations, even to the extent of maintenance and renovation as well as deconstruction". So basically a Green Building aims to achieve:

i) Efficient use resources like water, energy and other utilities.

ii) Safeguarding health of occupants and improving their productivity.

iii) Waste reduction, minimizing pollution and preventing environmental deterioration.

"A building meeting these objectives will not only ensure that our development is sustainable, it will also ensure that future cost of using the building will not increase significantly when cost of Utilities and other resources will go up." – as per senior ESD consultant Marlon Kobacker. Hence many countries in the world have aligned their policies to promote Green Building to make their development more sustainable. They have set up statuary bodies or have started promoting Industrial Councils that issue guidelines for construction of Green buildings. These bodies also certify constructed buildings as Green Building depending whether they comply with the laid out norms or not. Further there is system in place that rate the building on the basis of quantum of compliance they are able achieve, more the compliance, higher the rating.

At present, it is a general notion that constructing a Green Building is expensive than constructing a building based on traditional norms. But this idea may not hold its ground if the future savings in cost of energy and other utilities are considered while comparing the financial requirements of both the buildings. This can be achieved by using skills of an expert consultant in this field who can give us an accurate idea about future savings from the Green Buildings, thus establishing their cost effectiveness.

At present, onus of giving our race an ample future by making our present development sustainable lies on us and we shall exercise every feasible option, like constructing Green Buildings, to achieve that goal.