India Focus: State Progress on Green Buildings

Co-authored with Marie McNamara.

Local and state action is a major focus of the Green Building Congress 2020 this year. A rapid scale-up of energy efficient building codes is needed to achieve India’s climate, energy and health goals. To highlight state leadership, government officials from six states across India are coming together for a virtual session as part of the Green Building Congress this week.

Residential and commercial buildings account for nearly 30% of total electricity consumption in India. To promote energy conservation and capitalize on building energy savings opportunities, the Indian government developed the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) for commercial buildings. The state's role is to notify, adopt and implement the code.

Building energy efficiency codes are effective tools that ensure energy efficiency in the construction and operation of buildings, yielding a 30% to 40% reduction in energy use. Promoting the broader state adoption and implementation of the ECBC is critical to saving energy, improving air quality, charting a low carbon future, and achieving India's climate goals.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), along with Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), and Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), are hosting a virtual Green Building Congress 2020 session to share best practices from state ECBC implementation efforts. The session will bring together senior representatives from state governments and international experts to discuss how states can ramp up action on ECBC implementation and promote green building development.

Welcoming remarks are to be given by Mr. Shri V. Suresh, Chairman of the Indian Green Building Council, and Dr. Usha Ramachandra from Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) will moderate the first session on state action and building energy efficiency. Both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have spearheaded efforts to notify and implement ECBC. Mr. Arvind Kumar will discuss how Telangana streamlined ECBC implementation, and Dr. Srikant Nagulapalli will highlight lessons learned from Andhra Pradesh.

Additional updates from states leading ECBC implementation efforts will be highlighted, Mr. Prasad Reshme will outline recent ECBC notification progress in Maharashtra. Mr. Manoj Kosle will provide remarks on-ongoing ECBC efforts in Chhattisgarh. Mr. Ram Kumar will discuss the Uttar Pradesh Energy Conservation Building Code (UPECBC) and recent efforts to simplify the UPECBC compliance process. Mr. Shekar Reddy Past National President of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers of India (CREDAI) and Managing Director of CSR Estates Ltd, will also provide perspectives from the real estate sector.

During the webinar, the Building Smart form the Start: Implementation of Energy Saving Building Codes in Uttar Pradesh case study will be released. This case study draws upon best practices to illustrate how other states can follow suit and develop a transparent and straightforward ECBC compliance process.

Wednesday, November 18^th, 2020, 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm (IST)

Registration for the webinar is available via this link

Prima Madan is an energy efficiency expert that works with NRDC's India program. Marie McNamara is a Duke Stanback Fellow with NRDC's India program.