Author: Puneet Verma

Proud to announce that my article and thoughts on the topic ‘Need for green housing amidst unconstrained construction activities’ has been featured on 99acres.com, well known real estate website and forum where buyers, sellers and brokers can exchange information, quickly, effectively and inexpensively. I would like to thank Shephali Kapoor for providing me a platform to reach and connect with real estate audience developers, buyers, builders and architects and enable me to share my thoughts on importance of building green housing culture in rapidly growing real estate industry. To read my full article, please click here.

Download article PDF here.

Urbanization has given us new opportunities to grow, but it has also left behind grave issues like air pollution, global warming, health risks & negative impact on environment. Even though we have started living in an era of digital, still we have been unsuccessful in sustaining our sources of life ie plants & trees. With growing population in cities and tremendous growth in construction projects, demand for affordable housing & infrastructure has also grown rapidly. Living in societies with abundance of facilities, we still haven’t learnt the real way of living.

Our goal for living a beautiful life has turned into spending a life. Construction & housing should shelter us and make our life comfortable but not at-least at the cost of life sources. There is need of paradigm shift in the way constructions are being done in real estate industry and lifestyle which consumers follow inside the structures developed.

Environmentally sustainable homes are need of the time. Green housing is the future of real estate that has come into picture and seems to be the only way to practice a sustainable lifestyle. Housing should be developed in such a way where we can reduce waste, reuse most of it and probably recycle it. Making use of non-bio-degradable items in form of items of home furnishing, doing plantation at apartment level and then taking it to the next level, managing wastage of energy and water in smarter ways, harvesting rain water and using solar

powered equipment’s and vehicles. These practices are surely going to make our dream home safer for kids and ourselves in terms of health. Overall green housing is the way for developers & builders to attract more customers demonstrating how much they care for customer and their families.

At Mission Green Delhi community (www.missiongreendelhi.com), our environment practitioners are working on supporting & building green housing culture by imparting training on vertical gardening, terrace gardening, waste segregation, waste management at the source, planting trees by identifying empty places like roadside dividers. Our mission has been to support and empower all those who work for environment sustainability.

As per government sources, 40% of global energy & water consumption is generated from building industry. Inhabitants create almost 48% of solid waste. Therefore, for sustainability achievement, building projects should comply to the internationally recognized LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards and GRIHA rating (Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment) from TERI. Environmental performance of a building could also be assessed with the help of GRIHA certified professionals and architects, who specialize in green housing. Also, government should advocate & enforce green housing projects and offer incentives to both builders & property buyers as per the green ratings & assessments. Government of Maharashtra has been successful in enforcing & implementing ‘Maharashtra Green Building Policy’ which allows construction projects owners to assess their projects for well-being of their customers.

At last, it’s important for us to explore real benefits of green housing, understand misconceptions around and bring clarity into thoughts.