Training on "Climate and Clean Air Imperatives for Urban Build Environment" from 4th to 6th June 2024

CSE conducted an onsite training on “Climate and Clean Air Imperatives for Urban Build Environment”. The training took place at the Anil Agarwal Environment Training Institute (AAETI) from June 4 to 6, 2024, and was attended by 28 participants comprising of government officials. The training program focused on three main themes comprising: Climate Change and heat, Clean air and decarbonization measures for Urban Transport and C&D waste management and Dust Mitigation measures.

The first day began with Mr. Rajneesh introducing the audience to the issue of climate change and its impact on cities. He provided a comprehensive overview of vulnerability assessment, detailing the three key parameters—exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity—used to evaluate vulnerability. He then examined various drivers of heat gains in an urban context and discussed potential mitigation measures. Additionally, he offered an in-depth exploration of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) across different urban sectors. Dr. Nimish Gupta in his session‘Sweltering cities: extreme heat and strategies for its management in cities’presented CSE’s study on city heat analysis of 10 cities. Cities in India are becoming heat centres with several cities having more than 80 per cent of their areas under risk.Mr. Sugeet Grover and Dr. Nimish Gupta Singh jointly covered the drivers influencing heat dynamics, exploring both increases and reductions, as well as sources and sinks in urban areas.Following this, Mr. Sugeet Grover explained how materials and planning aspects could contribute to achieving circularity and resilience to heat. To support this, he presented several case studies from CSE’s research on the cooling web, offering detailed insights into cooling initiatives implemented across various institutions.

Day 2 was dedicated for urban mobility - challenges and opportunities to make the built environment clean and green. Anumita Roychowdhury initiated the discussion by presenting a holistic view on how mobility plays a vital role in urban local emissions. She broadly touched upon how shifting towards sustainable mobility interventions can help us greatly in achieving co-benefits related to both clean air and climate.In the second session, Shivangi Kumar made participants aware of the concept of low emission zone (LEZ) and how it can be used as one of the most robust strategies to improve air quality of an area; global experience of LEZ implementation; prerequisite and current status.

In the post lunch session, Sayan Roy, talked about the travel behaviour of the urban commuters; challenges and opportunities of different urban services and how a slight change in travel behaviour towards green modes including non-motorised & public transportation can make a huge difference in terms of achieving clean air and climate goals.In the last session of the day, Richa Pandey explained the dire need of using parking as a vehicle restraint measure to reduce personal vehicle usage; what is the Parking Management Aare Plan (PMAP) and how to implement it.

The sessions of day 3 were dedicated to the theme of ‘C&D waste management and Dust Mitigation measures.’ It began with a tour of the AAETI campus, the tour highlighted its sustainable features and their effectiveness in reducing environmental impact and contributing to circularity of resources. The site demonstrated how the natural topography and soft landscaping in the form of vegetation throughout the campus, are strategically utilized to reduce overall heat gains, minimize damage from weather extremes, and facilitate waste water treatment, among other benefits.Other features, including the choice of materials and considerations regarding building orientation, etc. were also showcased during the tour. Following this, Mr. Sugeet guided the audience through the impact of government-led initiatives on introducing new construction materials and technologies to the country. His lecture highlighted the criteria and parameters used in these initiatives to promote materials and suggested additional criteria to ensure more sustainable materials enter the market.Mr. Sugeet Grover continued this further by introducing the various technologies involved in a C&D recycling plant along with the products that come out of the process. The last session of the day was conducted on Greening the construction sector. Participants were introduced to a session on dust abatement at the city and building level, the processes involved, management, and safeguards for material handling. The 3-day training concluded with a feedback session with the audience and a certificate distribution ceremony. 

as conducted at India Habitat Centreon April23, 2024, and was attended by participants comprising of researchers, municipality officers, thinktanks and academia.

The workshopkicked off at India Habitat Centre with Mr. Rajneesh Sareen emphasizing the role of environmental impact assessment as an environmental safeguard towards decarbonizing the built environment. He explained how sensitivity, adaptive capacity and exposure are three key components for understanding vulnerability of a sector. Ms. Mitashi Singh in her consecutive lecture presented CSE’s study on city heat analysis of 10 cities. Cities in India are becoming heat centres with several cities having more than 80 per cent of their areas under risk. Dr. Nimish Gupta elaborated the findings further in his session on ‘Sweltering cities: extreme heat and strategies for its management in cities’. Post the sessions at AAETI, participants were taken to a site visit of a Construction and Demolition waste recycling plant in Noida. After the visit the participants proceeded to the Anil Agarwal Environment Training Institute.

Day 2 began with Dr. Nimish introducing the participants to the Potential of Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) in studying urban climates, offering both an introduction and hands-on session for identifying urban heat centres and explaining the method for capturing various heat drivers. This was followed by Mr. Sugeet Grovers session in which he explained the fundamentals of designing buildings through passive design and emphasized how these principles form the backbone for achieving thermal comfort and reducing operational energy in buildings. Mr. Rajneesh further continued this journey by introducing Energy Efficiency Building Codes, their compliance procedures and requirements. The next session was taken up by Mr. Madhusudan Rao from Oorja. Mr. Rao delved into how renewable energy and sustainable cooling/heating solutions both are necessary pathways that need to be taken to achieve net zero buildings. He supported this with examples from case studies from across the country with stress on structural cooling as a potential cooling solution fit for the Indian climate. The day amended with participants being taken for a tour of the campus for an exercise regarding the campus’s green features.

On day 3, Mr. Rajneesh Sareen began with a session on the confluence of renewable energy within the urban setting. This was followed by Mr. Kaifee Jawed’s session on Bio-CNG: a green alternative to fossil fuels. The next session was taken by Dr. Kalyana Rama, Associate Professor at Mahindra University. Mr. Rama introduced the audience with a methodology to calculate embodied carbon for various life cycle stages of a building with different raw materials. He supported this with various examples and tools for calculations. Following this Mr. Sugeet took the audience for a journey in which he described how government led initiatives have introduced emerging construction materials and technologies to the country. The lecture emphasized on the criteria and parameters that are part of the initiatives to promote materials and what should be added to this list of criteria to ensure more sustainable materials find their way into the market.

The theme of sustainable materials continued with a session by Mr. Rajneesh Sareen who spoke about circularity and resource efficiency to make people aware of the challenges that the world faces due to a linear approach to consumption and the waste it creates. He introduced the audience to the 2016 rules governing C&D waste management, the challenges in its implementation and the ecosystem approach that is required to solve it. Mr. Sugeet Grover continued this further by introducing the various technologies involved in a C&D recycling plant along with the products that come out of the process.

On the last day, the participants were involved in an exercise to identify the resources in the region that could be used for construction, this involved use of construction demolition waste, as well as low embodied renewable materials. Post the exercise, Mr. Sugeet Grover introduced participants to how climate change is driving a shift towards increased utilization of non-recyclable materials with higher embodied energy, presenting a significant challenge. He also highlighted how hybrid technologies (combining traditional and modern approaches) could help alleviate these issues. This was supported by case studies that CSE conducted in West Bengal and Odisha on the subject. At the end of the day, the participants presented their findings pertaining to the exercises conducted on day 2 and day 4.