There is a personal anecdote from my post-graduate study time that I find interesting. It has stuck with me for several reasons. I had an idealized picture-perfect image in my mind about how I will go on saving the environment with my chosen profession as an architect and town planner. Sustainability, Green building, Energy efficiency were the concepts I used to eat, drink and breath. Of course, nothing about my understanding and intentions were pragmatic. However, building sustainability / energy rating systems was a topic I was interested in most, because it seemed such a robust and applicable solution towards achieving sustainable future (which would in turn make heaven on earth possible, DUH)! One fine morning, we were discussing those same topics during a lecture, when our professor told us about how the sustainability rating system used as a part of legislation was not up to the task. To my shock, the professor shared a side project they were working on, for which they had successfully designed a building (on paper) which complied with all the legislative requirements of obtaining the certification for ‘A Sustainable Building’ and yet performed, for the lack of a better (or worse) word – poorly in terms of energy efficiency. Of course, there were nuances to the discussion which involved legal, economical and several other discourses for the conditions of the rating system in question. To clarify, the situation is not as gloomy as the beginning of this article might have led to believe. However, looking at the dire need of addressing issues like climate change and their adverse effects such as urban heat island effect, past and projected evolution of building sustainability rating systems could certainly use an evaluation.

There has been numerous discussions and debates around the topic, but they focus more on comparison and determining a ‘better’ rating system. However, it is difficult to come up with a conclusive result based on head-on comparison due to different approaches taken by each rating system. For that reason, this article is more inclined towards choosing a rating system that was purposed specifically for Indian context and discussing its trajectory over the years to estimate and provide insights for its future direction. Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA) is a government backed rating system adopted by Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and developed by The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI). This article aims to discuss the evolution and possibility of the growth of GRIHA rating system which was designed to cater the Indian subcontinent with its case specific and context oriented approach. The appraisal of the system to meet the demands of contemporary building industry is due. The article will briefly cover origin of the system and discuss other aspects to improve the efficiency of the system such as relevance, transparency and integrated early stage design approach.

To assess the evolution of the system, it is essential to understand the origins and growth of it. The intent behind development and implementation of GRIHA was to create a mitigating response for contemporary building industry’s normative design, construction, and operation practices. GRIHA works on the principle of “What gets measured, gets managed”. Revolving around that principle are the factors with which, the efficiency of building is assessed. These factors consist of preservation of existing environmental features on site, orientation and layout for adequate solar exposure and optimum ventilation, efficient fixture and treatment systems for handling water and waste more sensibly, and over all safety and wellbeing of humans as well as environment in the phase of construction and after construction during the occupation and the operation. GRIHA has three specific categories of assessment according to the built up area of the project.

Even after many careful considerations mentioned above, studies indicate that India’s native green building rating system GRIHA falls short in achieving the goals of sustainable development in comparison of its counterparts such as US-LEED and BREEAM. Although GRIHA’s government backing incentivizes the project, it is not adequate in terms of implementation due to the lack of transparency. It is found by research that the qualifying projects are not tracked by the Ministry of New & Renewable Resources for their performance during the life cycle. The Ministry has record of information only for government project and not the private sector developments, which takes up significantly large portion of the industry in comparison of the government projects. On top of that, even that information for government projects is not published on GRIHA’s website. The actual parameters of the building’s performance are kept undisclosed. This defeats the purpose of the rating system in terms of awareness and incentive of following the qualified examples for considering the design measures adopted to achieve energy efficiency, water management and waste & recycling.

Another major aspect of building design neglected in assigning the credits for GRIHA rating system for sustainable building design is structural design. It is noted that material specification is a part of the credit assigning apparatus. However, that is the extent of structural perspective in current system for achieving the goal of sustainable building. There are potential aspects of structural design such as thermal mass contributing to factors of operational and embodied energy that can significantly fill the gap between intent and outcome for sustainable building design. Early stage stakeholder engagement is one of the core principal of green building development and structural design is an integrated part of the process. It cannot be left to mere material specification. Even the material specification aspect could use some detailed interventions in the system such as life cycle cost and assessment to consider sensible design option on early stages; nature of material to incorporate more recycled & locally sourced materials and achieve the target of carbon footprint reduction by minimizing embodied energy of the building; durable and resilient structural design to address the disaster mitigation and climate change response aspect of sustainability.

As India is a country with widely diverse economic, social and geographic climate, it is essential to address that diversity in the system that assesses the green buildings nationwide. Other green building rating systems such as LEED and BREEAM have made regional consideration an integrated part of the assessment. LEED is widely adopted due to its regional bonus credits. BREEAM has opted an intuitive but innovative approach of BREEAM Bespoke in which, assessor can collaborate with the authority to generate the assessment criteria specific to the building. Based on the foregoing observations, it is clear that GRIHA can achieve significantly better results by focusing on aspects like transparency, inclusion of integrated building design aspects like structural design, and innovation in regional specific approach.

This article discussed the potential of GRIHA to be a better version of itself by taking inspiration from other successful systems. No rating system is without its own shortcomings. However, it is essential to acknowledge and adopt the positive aspects of each system which makes it work more efficiently.

References:

· Bansal, S., Biswas, S. and Singh, S. K. (2019), ‘Review of green building movement and appraisal of rating systems in the Indian context’, International Journal of Technology Management & Sustainable Development, 18:1, pp. 55–74, doi: 10.1386/tmsd.18.1.55_1

· Mr D E V S Kumar K. (2016) ‘GRIHA for green buildings in India – Moving ahead with the nation’, Centre for Research on Sustainable Building Science, Sustainable Habitat Division, TERI, Indiranagar, Bengaluru, India.

· Sandhu J., Tripathi A., Arunachala A., Sharma M. (2015), ‘2015 International Conference on Smart Technologies and Management for Computing, Communication, Controls, Energy and Materials (ICSTM)’, Vel Tech Rangarajan Dr. Sagunthala R&D Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, T.N., India. 6 - 8 May 2015. pp.499-503.

About Author:

Part time procrastinator and full-time dreamer; Jay Shah is an architect who recently graduated with a degree in urban planning from Western Sydney University and working in Australia. He is also the Lead vocalist of the Vidyanagar- based- band – ‘Beyond Things’. Books, sticktly non-fiction reading except for detective novels, works of Neil Gaiman, Arthur C. Clarke (Alright, his taste is all over the place), and videogames are few of his interests other than study and appreciation of built & natural environment and community. He aims to be a researcher in the field of building sustainability and community engagement or maybe open a music café. Who knows?