March 2010 Lets Partner

MAR 2010 VOL 23 (7)

Cool ELEMENTS Sustainability•water•Technology

18 IA&B - MAR 2010

Chandrashekhar Hariharan

Let’s Partner He is the face behind India’s human development and quality of life. His company Biodiversity Conservation India Limited (BCIL) is responsible for building eco-friendly houses in the country. From a humble beginning in 1995, to a multi-million dollar enterprise, Chandrashekhar Hariharan is dedicated to creating ‘green’ solutions for urban living. In a colloquy with Sarita Vijayan, Editor & Brand Director, Indian Architect & Builder Magazine, he enthuses about his vision behind BCIL and his plans for the future.

Photograph: courtesy BCIL

SV. What was the vision behind establishing BCIL? CH. In mid-1994, when the idea was born to start an enterprise after nine years of being an NGO, it was primarily driven by our need at the time to move away from donor-based project initiatives we were undertaking in areas of water and energy management in the rural context. For ten years we had worked on mini-micro hydels, water-driven oil mills without electricity, lift irrigation systems that worked without power and such other technologies. By 1994, we began to see that technology learning in the areas of energy and water as well as on vegetation and biomass planning could be used well in the urban context with a model that would be economically sustainable. We were inspired by case studies Alvin Toffler details in his Third Wave. We were inspired by David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold (who wrote Sand County Almanac) and Rachel Carson (author of Silent Spring). We saw the potential for continuing to work on water and energy in a way that we could enhance the quality of life while the technologies that we had mastered could be used by an enterprise, while both arms pushed towards conservation. Essentially, 15 years later, our vision-planks have remained the two triangles that drive our business…water-energyquality of life and technology-enterprise-conservation.

SV. From the time you started BCIL, over a decade ago, until now, how have people’s perception changed towards eco-friendly dwellings?

CH. In the mid-90s, before the global warming scare hit people’s consciousness, such buildings as we created were considered iconic, eco-sensitive buildings.

People bought into the value of larger lands, more trees and vegetation and traditional architectural values we offered. In the next ten years, people saw the dramatic increase in water and energy shortages. By 2005, when the methodology for green buildings in the urban context took root, the context changed from eco-friendly to energy-efficient buildings. If people today are more drawn toward the kind of homes that BCIL offers, it is because of the growing fear of water and energy security. People buy BCIL’s homes against other options in the market because of the long-term assurance they get on water availability and the quality of power that they get in their homes.

SV. Compared to western countries, India is still lacking in the green initiative department. What are the reasons behind it?

CH. My first observation is that India is not lacking! We are clearly ahead of Europe, Australia, Africa, South America and the rest of Asia in this definitive move towards green buildings. So far, it’s only the US that has been ahead of us. Even this is changing. India today has 500 million square feet of green buildings from IGBC alone in both residential and commercial segments. Moreover, this has happened in just three years! The US took 14

let’s partner

years to reach one million square feet. The difference is that our building industry growth is far higher to that of the US or of Europe. Our market is much more discerning than the European market or the American. What we lack is management process and quality execution. This has been a challenge in all sectors in India thanks to the lack of a strong work ethic as well as professional training. The many green directions across the board are fascinating in India. The sharp rise in green and energyefficient air-conditioning, in the LED and CFL markets, in demand for wastewater treatment plants or biomass gasifiers (that convert biomass to producer gas for gensets) or biogas digesters (that convert wet waste to biogas for kitchens or as compost)…these are all changes that are significant in greening the supply chain in India’s building industry.

SV. With majority of the Indian population settled in the rural landscape and are educationally challenged, what measures or initiatives can be adopted to increase awareness of sustainable living in rural India?

CH. There is a fallacy that we should not perpetuate. We have about 64 per cent of India’s population living in over 6 lakh villages. They leave a footprint which is extraordinarily low. Thanks to poverty and to centuriesold practices and traditions that respect nature and thanks to countless domestic habits that promote conservation, the Indian rural landscape has been extremely sustainable. So there is no need for any effort for them to take any initiatives to increase their awareness of sustainable living. They are aware, insightful, and knowledgeable on human society’s symbiotic connect to natural resources. Instead, I’d urge that we must work earnestly on have people in the urban segment learn and be inspired from the rural populace! These rural traditions have been lost in our cities in the last 50 years of western definitions of quality of life and the increased dependence on complex buildings and technologies.

The Indian urban mass of over 37 per cent of the population lives in two percent of the entire country’s landmass! This urban population consumes 70 per cent of the country’s natural resources and generates over 60 per cent of the India’s GDP. The question is: how do we get India’s cities to not be abusing the resources of our rich hinterland? Can Delhi, for example, get its water without destroying the sub-Himalayan ecosystem? Can we avoid building dams to provide power for Delhi or Chandigarh while we displace millions of people in our villages, while we destroy their rivers and forest? Can Surat and Ahmedabad get water and power without destroying the fragile resources of Narmada? Can Mumbai get water and power without destroying the sensitive regions of the Western Ghats which cannot continue to support the hungry millions in the metro?

Cities have to become sustainable and reduce by half their dependence for water and energy on the India that is Bharath. The only solution into the future for our cities on energy shortages is energy efficiency.

Some very simple, affordable and pragmatic solutions exist today that you and I can implement in our homes. If every home spent Rs 2,000 to go CFL, Bombay’s 8 lakh houses will save over 20% of the current daily demand. If all apartments in Bombay decided to treat water and reuse it for flush tanks, 50% of the daily water demand of 4.5 billion liters will drop. If every Mumbai apartment put up a wet waste recyling plant [or a biogas digester], Mumbai will save 50 million liters of diesel that is used by BMC’s 3,000 contracted trucks that carry such stinking waste away from your homes to distant peripheries of the city. There are many other solutions that can make such a world of difference. Recent reports in Mumbai suggest that nearly 30 per cent of the city’s power feeds only the air-conditioners in the city!

SV. A majority of your constructions have been restricted to southern India. Are there any plans of expanding to the rest of the country?

CH. It is true that our projects are now confined to Bangalore, Mysore, Coorg and Goa. There have been people in Pune, Thane, Kalyan, Rajkot and such other midsize cities who have expressed interest in BCIL creating projects in those parts of India. We will surely pursue such plans in the near future. It is a matter of investments needed and our confidence in the market in these other cities, apart from our organisational bandwidth to produce effective customer delivery. We have, of course, been working globally with institutions like Ademe in Paris and the UN-Habitat in Seoul on research and documentation. Our projects have been used as case studies in universities like Carnegie Mellon in the US and the CEPT University and the School of Planning and Architecture in India.

SV. What advice would you provide for today’s architects/engineers who are looking at green architecture as a career opportunity?

CH. They must first find a crash course in simple organisational and management practices that build their personality strengths. Many young graduates in this country need to work on making themselves employable with some exposure to finishing schools that make them well-rounded people with strengths on team behavior, interaction ability and communication. Then will come their need to understand some imperative of the future of the building industry. Going green is not a career option but an inevitability today. There are programmes like the LEED AP and the IGBC AP which offer short-term certification courses for engineers and architects on green; building practices.

This will help them get a good headstart on the careers market.