Green building is a structure that has less impact on the environment and affordable. To encourage the ‘go green’ statement, more and more people are considering green building a very nice option. Any structure can be called a green building, no matter if it’s a home, school, office, community centre, school or any other which has characteristics like solar energy, waste and pollution reduction measures, a pleasant indoor. A green building should be adaptative to the changing environment, use of non – toxic material etc. The definition of green building also gets changed as per countries and regions.

According to the chief of the green rating system GRIHA, less than 2% of buildings in India are rated as green buildings. But the good news is that the numbers of green buildings are estimated to go up because the 60% of the country’s infrastructure will be developed in the next 20 years.

Green buildings can help in reducing the exposure of people to outside toxic air to a great amount and also clean the surrounding area of pollutants. These buildings can play a key role in improving air qualities in cities like Delhi, Kanpur etc.

“Less than 2 percent of green buildings in India but at the same time the amount of opportunities is also huge because about 60 percent of the infrastructure is yet to be put in place between now and the next 20 years so there is a huge amount of opportunity,” Sanjay Seth, chief executive officer of the Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA) Council, said.

“If we are able to plan those buildings which have not been constructed yet correctly in accordance to green norm then it would be a great deed for yourself and for nation,” he added.

Green building is the practice of creating structures and using processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building’s life-cycle from siting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation and deconstruction.

“Green buildings are much more healthy entities in terms of designing but the air that is going to come inside would be something that is present outside but to a certain extent you could minimise or reduce the damage through a green building. A green building can reduce the interference from outside pollutants,” he said.

“The incentive could be municipalities or authorities come up with extra FSI (Floor Space Index) because developer for every inch of space is getting paid extra so if authorities say that for green buildings they are going to give an extra FSI in terms of percentage which means money for the developer,” he said.

FSI means the ratio between the area of a covered floor (Built up Area) to the area of that plot (land) on which a building stands.

Property tax and electricity tariff rebates are also given by authorities but they are incentives given to consumers and not to developers so there is a need to move that segment of the market, he added.