The Indian government has churned out multiple codes and schemes for making buildings climate-friendly in the past two decades, but with little success. Though several states have adopted codes such as the Energy Conservation and Building Code (ECBC), this has hardly translated into practice. But some cities like Hyderabad and Ahmedabad have made better progress.

These measures are urgent now, as more people are falling prey to heat-related deaths and diseases, including inside poorly ventilated buildings. In the summer of 2024 alone, the Indian government reported 360 heatstroke deaths. Cities like Ahmedabad have seen devastating heat wave impacts much earlier, a heat wave in 2010 here was estimated to have caused over 1,300 deaths including that of newborns in hospitals. 

As residents use more air conditioning to cool off, the power use of buildings has also rocketed. The building sector now consumes 30% of all power in the country, and of this, over two-thirds are used up by residential buildings alone. High water consumption and poor waste management are other impacts from this sector.

The rapid increase in the number of buildings also threatens to topple India’s emission reduction targets. Buildings alone contribute to a quarter of the country’s emissions, and this is expected to exceed India’s entire carbon budget allocation by 2070.

Sustainable or climate-resilient buildings are still a minority in India, but cities like Hyderabad and Ahmedabad show that change is indeed possible. Professor Rajkiran Bilolikar, Director at the Centre for Energy Studies at the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), says that Hyderabad and other cities of Telangana now have an ecosystem where most builders willingly comply with green building codes, where green building jobs have boomed and green building materials are easily available, unlike most other cities. He has been involved with implementing green building solutions in Telangana, and is a member of the state’s ECBC Technical Cell. ECBC implementation is estimated to save 392 million units of power annually in Telangana.

Incorporating energy efficiency into building bylaws

In 2007, the Centre’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) released the ECBC that prescribes energy-efficient building materials, design and renewable energy use in new commercial buildings that use power above a certain threshold. The code was not mandatory and had few takers.

BEE released the latest Environment Conservation and Sustainable Building Code (ECSBC) in 2024, for both commercial and residential buildings. The code provides “standards for energy efficiency and conservation, use of renewable energy and other green building requirements”. Builders/owners can opt for three grades of compliance. 

BEE then entrusted the Hyderabad-headquartered ASCI, to develop an implementation framework for the code for the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh state. 

Rajkiran Bilolikar says, “A challenge was posed by the fact that buildings come under the municipal administration department, but energy conservation comes under the energy department. So the key question was, whose baby is this, how to ensure compliance? The code had to be blended with local bylaws, and the state government had to make rules to implement it.” 

Another challenge was that government officials as well as realtors were concerned about enforcement issues, costs and their lack of understanding of the code.

ASCI, along with its knowledge partners IIIT-Hyderabad and the global non-profit Natural Resources Defence Council, then created a framework in which the builder had to incorporate ECBC at the building design stage itself. Since power consumption of the building can’t be defined at that stage, ECBC was made applicable based on the area of the building. 

They also trained and empanelled Third Party Assessors (TPAs) to help realtors and their architects create the building plan. The TPA had to certify the plan, only after which the municipality would permit construction.

Once the construction is complete, the builder has to submit another certificate from the TPA that the building did comply with the plan. This is mandatory for getting the Occupancy Certificate from the municipality. This system ensures that builders get technical support while government officials don’t have to spend time checking compliance.

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Besides, training sessions for builders helped convince them about the savings from implementing the code.

The system was first implemented in Hyderabad. In 2017, Telangana extended it to all its urban local bodies by incorporating ECBC into the Telangana Building Rules. In 2019, Telangana became the first state to make ECBC mandatory under its municipal laws. ECBC compliance is part of the state’s online building permission approval system. 

C Shekar Reddy, Hyderabad-based realtor and former national president of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI), says builders are open to implementing ECBC now as it holds the promise of reduced power use and operational costs of the building. “Now materials and technologies with high energy-efficiency are available in the market, so if they use better materials, their savings will be correspondingly higher.”

According to Niti Aayog, 430 commercial buildings in the state had complied with ECBC as of 2023. But challenges remain. Devender Reddy, Additional Director of Town Planning at the Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MAUD) Department, Telangana, says some builders have influenced TPAs to certify non-compliant buildings. “In fact, we cancelled the licences of a few TPAs for this reason. So we need to either get an agency or use our internal resources to verify TPA certificates or do random checks. Discussions on this are ongoing.”

Devender adds that the state is also considering monetary or other incentives for buildings with higher star ratings. The Telangana State ECBC assigns a star rating for buildings depending on the extent of code implementation.

The state has also announced plans to implement the ENS, the energy efficiency code for residential buildings, which he expects would be more challenging.

ECBC implementation in Gujarat

Meanwhile, Gujarat, known for pioneering many green building solutions, too has roped in experts to help implement the residential and commercial ECSBC. The state is yet to notify the codes, but signed an MoU last year with the international NGO Global Buildings Performance Network (GBPN) for technical advisory support on this.

As part of this, GBPN has developed an e-compliance platform to implement the ECSBC – Residential (ENS). “The platform consolidates all key information in one location, providing a simple tool for the [real estate] sector to check if their project is compliant and, if not, what actions are required,” says Sunita Purshottam, Chair of GBPN Board, adding that the platform can be scaled to other Indian cities. 

The platform will also have a directory of materials suppliers and professionals in the state specialising in ENS-compliant design, along with training material. It includes interactive maps that can help government officials identify compliant buildings, and will also include details of emissions from the building sector.

In the last few years, GBPN has also partnered with local builders to incorporate ENS-compliant design in affordable housing projects in Gujarat.

Nilesh Bhalala is Director at the Ahmedabad-based Vivaan Group that has worked with GBPN to incorporate ENS into a project; Nilesh says he faces challenges in terms of costs, convincing clients and even his own engineers since energy-efficient construction is not popular in the city. 

“Clients, especially those in the affordable housing segment, are interested in low costs rather than energy efficiency. So I implement the code up to 30-40% instead of 100%,” he says. “For example, developers generally build outer walls of 125 mm thickness. Whereas GBPN suggests 200 mm to reduce heat inside the building. But this would reduce the room size, which clients won’t want. So I keep the thickness at 150 mm. If the government offers incentives – like exempting the outer wall from the carpet area (total usable floor area) – it would be easier.”

Nilesh believes green buildings will get a boost only if the Gujarat government notifies the ENS and strictly monitors its implementation. 

Effective implementation of both the residential and commercial codes can reduce Gujarat’s overall emissions by about 30%, says Dr Hitesh Vaidya, GPBN Board member and former Director at the National Institute of Urban Affairs.

Cool roofs to counter heat waves

Another cooling recommendation, included in both the union government’s National Mission on Sustainable Habitat as well as the India Cooling Action Plan, is ‘cool roofs’. Cool roofs use reflective paint, tiles, etc. to bring down indoor temperatures significantly, and thus energy bills on account of air conditioning. 

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Ahmedabad released a Heat Action Plan way back in 2013 that promoted the use of cool roof materials. Since the pilot project in 2017, the city has applied cool roofing to around 10,000 slum houses, says Dr Tejas Shah, Deputy Health Officer at the corporation. The programme is currently in abeyance, but authorities are working to reintroduce it.

“It is very difficult for a local body to do this by themselves. Also, no actual evidence is available on the extent of the impact that cool roofs have on the health parameters of individuals. So Ahmedabad is now part of a study that is going on in four different cities of the globe,” he says. Under the study, scientists will collect health and indoor environment data from residents of 200 houses where cool roof paint is applied, and compare the results with another 200 houses where no paint is applied. 

The city has also recently enlisted ASHAs to promote cool roofs in slums. “We trained ASHAs with the help of the NGO Mahila Housing Trust. ASHAs motivate people to adopt cool roofing, and if the household does so, we pay the ASHA an incentive of Rs 250 per house,” Dr Shah says.

Meanwhile, Telangana released its Cool Roofs Policy in 2023, building on the success of its pilot project in 2017. The policy makes cool roofs mandatory for issuing Occupancy Certificates to all new commercial buildings, and to new residential buildings with plot area above 600 square yards. The policy targets completion of 200 sq km of cool roofs within the Hyderabad urban agglomeration, and another 100 sq km in the rest of Telangana, by 2028-29. 

According to MAUD, 120 buildings – including residential ones – have so far received Occupancy Certificates post cool roofing.

Devender Reddy says the government has also formed a committee that would create awareness and share information on cool roofing materials, so that owners of existing buildings can also implement it. This is expected to enhance the policy’s impacts, especially in terms of reducing the urban heat island effect.

Professor P Pavan Kumar of ASCI says they are also working with Google to develop a software that measures impacts, such as the extent to which cool roofs are increasing the reflectiveness of surfaces and the overall reduction in the urban heat island effect. The tool will also help the government monitor implementation, including in existing buildings that are not otherwise tracked.

Incentives for buildings with green certificates

Last year, the Gujarat government amended its development regulations to give Floor Space Index (FSI) incentives to buildings with green certifications from agencies like IGBC, GRIHA, LEEDS, etc. FSI or Floor Area Ratio, set by municipalities, dictates the extent of construction permitted on a certain plot of land. FSI incentives allow the builder to construct beyond the limit or involve fee discounts for the additional construction.

In fact, around a dozen other states in India now incentivise green building certifications in terms of FSI, reimbursement of certificate fees, etc.

Though the green building market is growing rapidly in India, the lack of monitoring of the certified buildings is a concern, says Shailesh Agarwal, Executive Director at the Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC) under the union ministry of housing and urban affairs. “Once a building gets the green certificate, does it remain green forever? Giving a certificate won’t solve the problem unless there’s monitoring, say for the next 10 years and intervention if the green parameters are below a certain threshold.”

Shekar Reddy, who is also vice chairman of the certifying agency IGBC, says they have requested state governments and urban local bodies to offer incentives for certificate renewal. “IGBC rating is valid for three years. Clients from the commercial category may renew it since they can advertise it. But 35% of our clients are from the residential category. They take the certificate initially to avail discounts on home loans from banks, but don’t renew it thinking it’s a waste of money.” 

Scaling up

Though the Centre has introduced several codes and schemes, only a larger movement can help make buildings climate-resilient, says Hitesh Vaidya. “Each state should harmonise different national codes and develop a unified code based on the local climatic conditions, that can be applied to all its urban local bodies. The state should have a single regulator,” he says.

Hitesh also recommends investment in capacity building, by having a green building cell in each local body. “A planning area should be identified for each city that includes fast-developing peri-urban towns. Also, the supply chain gaps in green building materials and architects should be addressed,” says Vaidya.

Also read:

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• A community-centric approach to building a climate resilient Bengaluru