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Parasuraman R, Chairman, Indian Green Building Council (part of CII - Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre) and Managing Director, Novar India has been nominated as the Vice Chairman of the World Green Building Council, at the US Green Building Annual Conference held at Pittsburgh, USA, recently.

As a Vice Chairman of World Green Building Council, ParasuRaman will oversee and facilitate the Green Building movement across the globe and specifically in Asia and India.

The Head of CII-Godrej GBC, S Raghupathy, said in Chennai that the World Green Building Council is a Global Federation of Green Building Councils among the world. Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Spain, India and the US have active Green Building Councils, and have founded the non-profit registered organisation called the World Green Building Council. The objective of the organization is to facilitate information sharing on green building activities and to promote the concept globally.

Green Building Council was initiated in 2002 and the number of member countries is set to increase to about 20 in 2004, with China, UK and Kuwait joining in.

The Green Building Council promotes sustainable architecture and buildings, which include Air Water and Energy management as key issues, apart from issues of productivity convenience and environmental sustainability.

The Council generates measurement parameters for rating Green Buildings in areas such as Energy Efficiency, Water Management, Renewable Energy, HVAC Efficiency, Air / Circulation Management, Human Productivity, Sustainable Building Materials, Recyclability etc. The parameters become standards to be used by countries & governments and building fraternity to develop Building Codes for interiors, new buildings, existing buildings and heritage buildings.

The Indian Green Building Council has been the initiative of CII - Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre (CII-Godrej GBC), a division of Confederation of Indian Industry. The CII - Godrej GBC was launched at Hyderabad, jointly with the support of the Andhra Pradesh government, House of Godrej, with the technical support of USAID.

Parasuraman has been the Founder Chairman of the Indian Green Building Council, for the past three years. The Indian Green Building Council has over 80 members from all over the country comprising senior architects, M&E Consultants, builders, corporate CEOs and legislative officers.

India came into the world map of Green buildings recently with the construction of the CII - Godrej GBC building, which achieved the prestigious first Platinum Rating of US Green Building Council (USGBC) under version 2.0 of LEED rating system. This is the first building outside the US to achieve the platinum rating and also the third building in the world to achieve such a rating, said Parasuraman.

The Green building movement in India is poised for a major growth. Several corporate like ITC, Godrej, Tatas, IC!CI, Or Reddy's Laboratories, NEG Micon, Grundfos have shown keen interest and are constructing Green buildings. CII - Godrej GBC team is facilitating the construction of their green buildings, he said. By the year 2006, consultants will be in place for the construction of 10 green buildings in India.

Based on a study of CII, the Green building market is expected to touch Rs 750 crore by year 2006. This will be a major boost to the Indian building construction industry in general and Indian green product manufacturers in particular. The Indian Green Building Council is facilitating market transformation of Green products through Incubation set up of CII - Godrej GBC.

One of the main agenda of the Indian Green Building Council under the leadership of Parasuraman is to develop a green building rating suitable to India in line with the LEED rating system of the US. The Indian Green Building Council is actively working with USGBC for a launch of consensus based LEED India, which will be an International green building rating system suitable to the Indian conditions, Raghupathy said.

The third World GBC meeting will be held in Hyderabad on August 25 and 26, 2004, he said adding that the second international GB Congress will also be held in Hyderabad from August 26-29, 2004.

RR