In this article we look at the concept of sustainable buildings, the key components in the domain of sustainable building, the key drivers in this ecosystem and the potential areas of innovations in this area. The concept of sustainable buildings refers to the use of environmentally responsible processes and sustainable materials throughout the entire life cycle of the building covering key stages like siting, design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation and demolition. The goal is to reduce the overall impact of the building on the environment and in turn human ecosystem – in line with the global alignment towards environment friendly and sustainable processes, practices and products.

There are several innovative solutions being used at the various stages of the building lifecycle to develop environmental friendly and sustainable building projects. Let us look at a few such innovations for a couple of the key stages of a building lifecycle –

Siting – The innovations in this area range from as simple as selecting a location that is most relevant to the target community in terms of minimizing personal travel requirements to something more technical like using environmentally friendly refill materials to refill and prepare a site for construction.

Design – This is probably one of the most critical areas for innovating to build sustainable structures – as the structure can be designed in order to maximize sunlight exposure (and thus minimize electricity usage), can be designed to be integrated with Solar Panels or other alternative energy modes, the parking can be optimized to use lower space and also vegetation pockets can be integrated into the building design to provide a level of food sustainability.

Construction – A wide range of sustainability promoting innovations can be used at the construction stage of the building life-cycle – they could be as simple as using the construction material that is closest available to the site location (thus minimizing transportation overheads over the environment) to something more technological like using special types of environmentally friendly cements and surface materials that are highly effective in retaining the internal temperature.

Similarly several innovative examples are available for the other stages of the building lifecycle and as noted in the examples above can range from simple process efficiency related improvements to advanced technology based solutions.

Even though there are several innovative solutions sprouting up globally addressing different aspects of the building life-cycle, for the sustainable buildings concept to be successful, efficient and widely accepted there has to be an integrated life-cycle-oriented approach where all the stakeholders in the various stages of the life-cycle are synched with the requirements of each other. This synchronized sustainable buildings ecosystem can be developed with the help of

(a)    policies that promote sustainable buildings using a carrot and stick approach – Example Carrots – tax incentives and regulatory incentives for sustainable buildings; Example Sticks – stricter regulatory norms that ensure a minimum level of sustainability component in new buildings.

(b)   Educating and training the workforce involved in the building lifecycle – thus ensuring that the various design elements are incorporated efficiently across the lifecycle.

(c)    Increasing awareness of the advantages of sustainable buildings to ensure the end customers understand the overall value of this ecosystem.