Green Sense: Sustainability Guidelines in Built Environment

June 5- 9, 2017 

A 5 days Training Programme titled "Green Sense: Sustainability Guidelines in Built Environment" was organized by Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi for Central Public Works Department (CPWD) officials from June 5, 2017 to June 9,2017 in the Lecture Room of Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi. The training was actively attended by 19 Architects across the nation, inclusive of architects and engineers working for CPWD.

DAY 1 - INTRODUCTORY SESSION ON REACHING SUSTAINABILITY IN BUILT ENVIRONMENT

First day started with the introductory session of the programme which was conducted by Mr. Rajneesh Sareen, Programme Director, Sustainable buildings and Habitat programme CSE. He presented the presentation on "Reaching Sustainability in built environment". He initiated with giving a brief about Sustainability - Need of an hour and further highlighted on bridging the gap in sustainable built sense with regard to understanding green, performance benchmarking for green and right institutionalization for green. 

DAY 2 TECHNICAL SESSION 1: SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND POLICIES IN INDIA 

The second day started with the presentation by Swati Singh Sambyal, CSE on "Solid Waste Management Policies & Practices in India." Her presentation began with the current scenario in India about the waste composition followed by various existing policies and practices initiated by government in India such as Swach Bharat Mission, Solid waste management rules etc along with their potentials and constraints. Further she highlighted the issues related to solid waste collection, disposal and treatment. She stressed over proper disposal of hazardous waste and suggested not to dump e-waste to the ragpickers but handover to registered recyclers/vendors. The best models of solid waste management in India i.e. Alappuzha, Mysuru and Panaji were discussed where the primary as well as secondary collection of waste was shown. An initiative was actively taken for not using disposable packaging packages on individual level by one and all present there. She concluded that the solution of solid waste management is to minimize waste at household level so that the problem of solid waste is solved in a simpler manner. 

Along with this a classroom exercise was done in which all the participants were divided in three groups with five members in each group. All the three groups were asked to prepare a waste management plan for a population of 15,000 living in a society. After each group made their plans, they presented their plan to all the other participants and a discussion over the plans was done with Ms. Swati. 

TECHNICAL SESSION 2: SUSTAINABILITY IN BUILT ENVIRONMENT

This session was headed by Mr. Rajneesh Sareen. It was the continuity of the first day technical session. He further talked about how sustainability can be achieved in terms of site considerations, planning, building design, usage of sustainable material and water smart landscaping. He also explained about the goals of sustainable cities and communities. He provided an introduction to CSE sustainability benchmarking with special focus on operational benchmarking of built infrastructure and stress was given on Green Mandate. Discussion further lead to sustainability building guidelines for the live project of CSE Anil Agarwal Environment Trainings Institute (AAETI), Nimli in Alwar District, Rajasthan and CSE building in Delhi to demonstrate the efforts to achieve sustainability goals. Brief description was given about the Nimli project in which the campus is designed by keeping in view climate analysis, shading analysis, heat island impact, window wall ratio, day lighting analysis, rain water harvesting and various shading devices both immovable and movable to control heat and glare. 

DAY 3: TECHNICAL SESSION: ENERGY CONSERVATION BUILDING CODE

Third day began with a presentation which was given by Mr. Vevaik Mahajan, dbHMS consultants on "Energy Conservation Building Code” He initiated with current and future trend and potentials of building sector in terms of energy consumption and conservation in India followed by the introduction of various codes under ECBC along with their details and objectives as well. He also presented the ECBC design norms for the building and the emphasis was given on minimizing the load from the building in order to make the building more efficient using various fixtures and materials through which energy consumption could be less and further resulting in conserving the energy.

FIELD VISIT TO CONSTRUCTION AND DEMOLITION WASTE RECYCLING PLANT, BURARI

The field visit to C&D waste recycling plant was made after lunch where the CPWD participants had a whole new exposure to the efficient working of IL&FS in recycling the entire construction and demolition waste. The entire working of the equipment was seen and the process of recycling waste was explained. The leftover waste such as the plastics, clothes, etc. were manually separated and were sent to Waste to energy plant, Ghazipur. The testing lab was also shown in which the different bricks being tested and the ones which were tested were seen. Along with this, the employees of the recycling plant also showed us the different recycled materials which they had already prepared. It was an all together a different and an exposure. 

DAY 4 TECHNICAL SESSION 1: VERNACULAR AND ALTERNATIVE MATERIAL CHOICES PROMOTING SUSTAINABILITY 

On day 4, Mr. Deependra Prashad, Principal Architect, DPAP presented a lecture on Vernacular and alternative material choices promoting sustainability in which he focused on several parameters which help in developing a sustainable building. He prioritized all the parameters and inter-related them so as to make the parameters more clear that how each one helps in green building. He also discussed about the other alternative materials such that how they are less effective than other prominent materials. He concluded his presentation with few examples of Gurugram in which he showed how different materials and efficient designs help in attaining sustainability goals.  

TECHNICAL SESSION 2: ENERGY MODELLING AND SIMULATION 

In the afternoon, Mr. Sameer Divekar, Director of dbHMS consultants gave a presentation on "Energy Modelling & Simulation" He initiated with the need of energy simulations which helps in calculating the building load before construction and making it more efficient beforehand only. Also he focused about the Interactive Energy Simulation in which he explained about the heat gain of the building with respect to different orientations and shapes of the building. Discussion was followed by the composition of various components of  heat gain and energy consumption by the building so that it could be well managed and transformed to be energy efficient, the decision making for finalizing the building envelope in terms of building shape and form and Day light study in terms of amount of glazing & type of glazing required. He also presented about the optimized usage of glass and different types of shading devices which helps to build an energy efficient enclosure. He further displayed various case studies on "Net Zero & Energy Conserving Buildings" such as Zero Energy House, Chicago, which was on Net Zero- Energy,Water & Waste approach, Institute of Rural Research and Development, Gurgaon, Nalanda University, Bihar, IIT Gandhinagar etc. he explained the layout plan of Nalanda University in detail explaining how they achieved the Zero energy, waste and water approach and how the development was divided in two phases such that they had to use the water from within the campus rather than the city water. 

DAY 5 TECHNICAL SESSION 1: EIA LEGISLATION 

On day 5, Mr. Inderjit Ahuja, Programme Manager, CSE, gave a presentation on EIA Legislation in which he focused on the EIA notifications 2016. He further went on explaining about the categorization of projects and activities and the requirements that are required for the Environmental clearances. He talked about the various environmental laws and how they affect the different types of projects. Later he focused on EIA transition in which he focused on the changes regarding EIA notifications in 2006 and 2016 and the environmental conditions for buildings and constructions. 

TECHNICAL SESSION 2: CLASSROOM EXERCISE 

An exercise was conducted after the lunch among the participants in which all 19 participants were divided into 5 groups consisting 4 members per group. All the five groups were given some set of questions on 5 different thematic zones chosen by each group differently (Land, Energy Conservation, Waste, Water Conservation, and Air Quality & Outdoor Spaces), They were asked to answer those according to their understanding level and present a brief description about their respective topic by one member from each group at the end of the exercise so that we get to know about their understanding level.

In the feedback session, the participants felt that the programme was of more informative, inspirational and beneficial that enabling them to design sustainable buildings.