Introduction
Sustainable real estate development has lots of elements beyond just landscaping, the addition of solar panels, and the installation of energy-saving lighting fixtures. Sustainability of real estate development in the Delhi NCR region has to focus on the rapid pace of urbanization and how the development of the region interlinks with water and air quality, energy consumption, transportation, waste, and more.
Truly sustainable real estate development considers all phases of development from pre-development through to how the site is going to be used after the end-of-life of the structures on the site. Each phase of development has a number of elements that determine the sustainability of the development, including, but not limited to, the location of the site, the design and orientation of the buildings on the site, performance of the buildings, management of water resources, materials and waste management, indoor environmental and transportation systems, and the building systems in place for ongoing maintenance. While there are lots of elements that impact the sustainability of a development project, the term sustainable or eco-friendly by itself is not a measurable performance criterion.
India has several sustainable building frameworks and standards. For example, the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) has a rating system that evaluates sustainable building design, and various indoor environmental systems and services, as well as water and energy efficiencies and more.
Similar to the IGBC rating system, GRIHA, the green building rating system of India, evaluates the site and its surroundings, and water-resource management, energy, and building systems resources at end-of-life, as well as a building’s overall performance throughout its life cycle.
For property buyers and investors in Delhi NCR, the more relevant evaluation question is, is the development project really green and eco-friendly?
What measurable systems make the development sustainable?
What Does Sustainable Real Estate Actually Mean?
Sustainable real estate means the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of real estate developments and buildings with a reduced consumption of resources and reduced negative impacts on the environment, while ensuring the comfort and needs of the occupants and ensuring the development’s and/or building’s economic feasibility and viability for the long term.
Achieving this ideal goes far beyond a handful of green features. For example, a development with rooftop solar panels may not be sustainable if its water systems are inefficient. Likewise, a building with a poorly performing energy system, poor waste management, and excessive landscaping would be an unsustainably built development and have a considerable negative impact on the environment.
A sustainable development must be assessed in several areas that are related to each other.
A key consideration is the management of energy and the impact of its use on the environment and the related cost of its use. Similar principles govern the management of water systems and services, as well as site planning (to manage the impact of heat, drainage, and the maintenance of biodiversity) and the use of building materials and systems for waste management.
Why Sustainability Matters More in Delhi NCR
Delhi NCR is appropriately scalable and sustainable given its size, density, rapid growth, and geographical location.
During the operational life of a building, the resources of energy and water are consumed in large quantities. This is especially true in the NCR where the extreme summer temperatures and resultant overreliance on air-conditioning have created a nagging concern over the electricity demands that are placed on the building.
Additionally, how a building manages its water resources is vital, especially in an urban setting where development increases the demand for potable water and unsustainable paving alters natural drainage and groundwater recharging systems.
Even the transportation footprint of a development is important. A community that is built without consideration of the public transport or employment resources will rely on private transport to a much higher degree than a similar community that is built with access to public transport or retail or employment resources. Because of this limitation, we cannot evaluate the sustainability of a real estate development at the level of the building alone.
Consideration must be given to the surrounding urban ecosystem. For instance, the Green Cities framework of IGBC includes compact development and land use planning as well as transit oriented development and the preservation or rejuvenation of water bodies and other ecologically sensitive areas.
Energy Efficiency: More Than Just Solar
Buildings and the energy resources they consume and generate form one of the most prominent aspects of sustainability, and yet discussions of sustainable buildings often begin and end with the topic of solar panels. While building integrated solar panels will help reduce the demand for grid electricity, energy efficiency must come first. For example, the orientation of the building, shading, type of glass, insulation, and other building systems including the HVAC system, and the design of the building shell will greatly influence the energy demand of the building.
In the context of Delhi NCR, Passive Design will be highly relevant for the region. The design of the building coupled with the placement and type of windows, shading devices, and daylight will have a great impact on the indoor environment and comfort and the level of energy required to cool the building. There is great overlap of energy efficiency and the design of sustainable systems and indoor comfort.
According to IGBC, the Green New Buildings framework has the potential to integrate sustainable design with other aspects such as energy efficiency, water, material and indoor environment, and innovation. The published advantages of these frameworks suggest a potential energy saving of 20% to 30% compared to other traditional New Green buildings.
For clients, this matters. Reduced energy consumption impacts the operating and maintenance costs as well as the overall performance of a building over time.
Water Management as an Indicator of Sustainability
Among other elements of sustainability, water management is of critical importance to the NCR. Sustainability should be embedded at each stage of the water management cycle, as opposed to simply installing low-flow water fixtures.
Maintaining a demand for freshwater can be achieved through rainwater harvesting, wastewater management, reuse of treated wastewater, through the planning of the vegetation as well as through the use of water metering and leak detection systems. Understanding the difference between the reduction of water usage and the reuse of water is crucial. One of the options includes reducing water usage at the source. The other option includes treating wastewater and reusing it for watering vegetation or other non-potable uses.
According to the criteria of GRIHA, treating wastewater and its subsequent reuse for irrigation as well as rainwater harvesting are essential building and site services. In Residential developments, the cumulative effect can be significant as the demand for water is created on a daily basis across thousands of residential units.
However, the real test is not whether the brochures for the development include examples of rainwater harvesting. The real test is whether the systems are designed, implemented, monitored, and maintained after the development is occupied.
Sustainable Site Planning Begins Before Construction
It is important to note that the early planning of the site impacts the overall sustainability of the building. Planning the site of a new building development can help avoid the excessive use of private transport by planning the site in close to the resources used and employment centers. Planning a site using existing resources can eliminate the need for additional resources to be used, unlike a site that is completely remote from other developments.
The design of the site can have an impact on the local climate. Shading and the placement of trees and buildings can help lessen heat accumulation and improve comfort levels in the outdoors. Excessive paving can increase surface runoff. However, creating appropriate drainage systems can help manage rainfall and reduce the impacts of surface runoff. Promoting sustainability through design means asking the first question: is the site being developed in a sustainable manner?
Using green building materials only addresses part of the problem. The sustainability of building materials is another important aspect of sustainability during the lifecycle of the building. Building materials such as steel, aluminum, glass, cement, bricks, insulation, and others require significant amounts of energy and resources to manufacture. Therefore, the construction industry has to consider sustainability and the lifecycle of the building in the construction process and try to minimize construction waste and use building materials that are locally available and that can be reused and recycled easily.
In many cases, the most locally available building material would require less construction waste and improve the sustainability of the building more than highly specialized materials that would require frequent replacement. The waste from the construction of a building can be minimized through the proper segregation and disposal of construction materials.
Managing waste and resources is one of the components of the Green Homes framework of IGBC, while GRIHA looks at waste management and the resources used in the construction of a building as part of the overall performance of the building.
A building must provide a comfortable place to live and work in to reduce its environmental impact. Wellness of building occupants can be impacted by a variety of aspects, from building materials with low emissions to the presence of natural daylight.
Delhi NCR focuses more on the wellness of building occupants because of the poor outdoor air quality for many months of the year. External pollution cannot be eliminated by a thoughtfully constructed building, but improved indoor environments can be achieved through the design of airtight building control systems and the use of filtration, ventilation strategies, monitoring Systems, and building management systems.
Daylight also has an important impact on building occupant wellness. Thoughtful orientation and design of building openings can enhance indoor environments and reduce reliance on artificial lighting.
Indoor environmental quality is included in the sustainability frameworks of GRIHA and IGBC, showing that the performance of green buildings goes beyond just energy and water aspects.
Waste Management Should Continue After Handover
A development can have incredible construction methods yet still have poor performance if the waste management systems are lacking after residents or tenants occupy the development.
Large scale residential buildings, office buildings, shopping malls, and mixed-use buildings create large volumes of municipal waste. Therefore, the operational model must include waste management systems to ensure proper treatment of organic waste, recovery of recyclables, and responsible waste disposal.
In residential buildings, the waste management systems may include treatment technologies such as composting or on-site processing of organic waste that can significantly reduce the volume of waste that is transported off-site to disposal facilities.
In commercial buildings, the focus on waste management must include the systematic separation of waste for recycling because significant waste such as packaging, food waste, and paper is generated by office and retail activities.
Continuity of operations remains the focus. If a sustainability feature is included in a project and isn’t maintained, there’s no real value in it.
Mobility and Connectivity Are Sustainability Factors Too
Building sustainability can become a problem if the site location is planned in a way that the occupants will rely heavily on private transportation.
This means that sustainability in real estate also accounts for connectivity. If a site is planned with public transportation, roads and infrastructure for walking and biking, job centers, stores, schools, and places people need easy access to, it can reduce private vehicle use. This is part of why transit-oriented development is a key area in sustainable transportation planning.
For Delhi NCR, connectivity is important because the distance between residential and job centers is great. A development that connects seamlessly with the transportation network can offer sustainability and working value. Sustainability of a property should be evaluated at three levels.
Building → Development → Location
An extremely sustainable building in a poorly planned location may have less sustainability than a successful development in a sustainable efficient urban area.
Green Certifications Give a Framework, Not a Guarantee
Using Green Certifications for building sustainability can be helpful, but should not be the only measure.
There are several methods of green building assessment in India. The Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) has numerous rating systems and programs for the building of residential, commercial, industrial, healthcare, and other developments. Their current assessment system has over 19,820 green building projects, covering over 16.20 billion square feet.
GRIHA, created with assistance from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, reviews buildings based on a variety of elements such as performance pertaining to energy, water, materials, waste, site, and occupants. For buyers and investors, the key is understanding what a certification comprises.
A project may claim “green certification,” however, the real evaluation should be based on the certification rating, level, scope, and features that have been implemented.
While certification is helpful in that it provides some level of criteria, it does not guarantee that certified buildings will have the same performance level, nor does it remove the necessity of conducting a property-level due diligence.
Evaluating Sustainable Development for Buyers
The buyer should avoid the overused and often abused terminologies of marketing and evaluate what is measurable. An excellent starting point for evaluation is the project’s energy strategy. Evaluate the efficiency of the building’s orientation and envelope, the lighting and HVAC systems, energy monitoring, and the potential for on-site renewables.
Water strategy evaluation is concerned with the efficiency of the irrigation system and the potential for rain and wastewater to be harvested, treated, and reused, and the installation of a monitoring system.
Sustainable site and landscape planning should also be evaluated. The proximity and access to public transportation, walkable streets, rational land use, and drainage all contribute to the overall sustainability of the development.
Having a reasonable and rational basis should be the primary concern. Buyers need to ask if the sustainability claims are supported by evidence such as certification, supporting design, project documents and specs, and operational data.
For investors, the concern should be on the long-term impact of what is being marketed as sustainable. Potentially, savings from energy and water efficiencies could impact operational costs in the long term. However, actual savings will be contingent on the quality of the design, how the space is used, and how equipment is maintained and operated. This positions sustainability as an environmental and an asset-management consideration.
Sustainability claims should be evaluated alongside the property’s broader legal and technical fundamentals, making [**property due diligence**](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.sbrerealty.com/services/property-due-diligence/\&sa=D\&source=editors\&ust=1787133300709023\&usg=AOvVaw2h2MOQWX4pSWAkL0vag26g) an important part of the purchase process.
Sustainability and Property Value Over Time
Sustainability affects property value through the efficiency of operations and management. The presence of sustainability features can impact the desirability of the property for tenants and influence the level of resilience and quality of the asset. Stronger demand for sustainable offices is apparent in the evaluation of the overall quality of the workplace and its impact on staff. Potential purchasers of residential property will assess the impact of sustainability on the cost of utilities, comfort, and the level of service and maintenance in the community.
Sustainability will not guarantee an increase in the value of a property.
The value of a property is influenced by a multitude of factors such as demand in the market, local conditions, the quality of the construction, and the reputation of the developer. A sustainable property in a poor location will not have a higher value than a more conventional property that is well located.
The strongest argument for the value of a property is the combination of sustainability features and high quality of the property.
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Sustainability Vs. Green Features
Sustainability and green features should not be confused. Green features include the construction of solar energy systems/solar panels on the building. A construction design that creates a smaller energy footprint and the integration of renewables to minimize energy impact over the building’s life cycle is a more comprehensive sustainability strategy.
A rainwater harvesting system is a green feature. If a building integrates a system for managing the water footprint, harvesting rainwater, treating and reusing wastewater and preventing leakage, then it is a more comprehensive sustainability strategy.
The same principle can be applied to landscaping. A large landscaped area does not ensure sustainability. The irrigation needs of the plants, water management practices and soil maintenance also need to be considered.
Sustainability needs to be viewed through the lens of systems thinking.
How Sustainable Building Should be Implemented Across the Delhi NCR
Truly sustainable building should balance performance for the environment with pragmatic function for the city. It should consume energy and water and generate waste to the least degree possible. It should provide and maintain healthy indoor environments. It should minimize negative impacts on the environment. It should, at the same time, remain linked to jobs, transit, services, and the rest of the community.
This more comprehensive thinking is increasingly evident in the Indian green building systems/frameworks, which tend to assess a spectrum of options rather than a single technology/attribute.
Concerning Delhi NCR, the most relevant developments are likely to be those that integrate the efficient use of building resources with urban resilience. For this region, resilience means the ability to balance the demand and supply of energy, water, and mobility, as well as the disposal of waste and the cost and operational function of space.
Conclusion
When it comes to sustainable real estate, the number of green elements in the project brochure is the least relevant measure. The most sustainable developments commence with the selection and planning of the site, continue through the construction process, and maintain relevance through the entire operational life of the building.
This concerns the balance of energy, water, and materials, as well as waste, indoor environmental quality, and the mobility and the quality of the landscape and maintenance over time. For potential real estate buyers and investors in the Delhi NCR, the most valuable measure is to look at what has been designed, built, certified, and maintained.
The green building certifications, such as IGBC and GRIHA, provide valuable frameworks for assessing these issues, but the assessment has to be conducted at the project level.
In short, sustainable real estate goes beyond building improvements that lower resource consumption. It is the development of real estate assets that are, and will continue to be, efficient, functional, resilient and valuable over time. This is where thinking ecologically and professionally about real estate commences.
