MMR sees rise in environment-friendly neighbourhood

MUMBAI: Environment-friendly green buildings in Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) have seen a sharp rise since 2019 with 15 new buildings obtaining Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, and 48,89,993 sq ft of gross floor area receiving the certification this year (over the last 10 months), according to a research report by international property consultants, Knight Frank India. (See box: LEED certified buildings in MMR, for four-year data).

It ranks sixth (see box: LEED certified buildings in Tier 1 cities) on the national index of Tier-1 cities.

Investors are increasingly taking into account sustainable, ethical and responsible business practices when evaluating the risk and performance of a company and the real estate industry is moving rapidly towards environmental, social and governance (ESG) values, especially in commercial real estate.

Highlighting the importance of LEED Certification of buildings, Sujatha Ganapathy, vice president, Sustainability and Well Standard Business at Knight Frank India, said, “Sustainable architecture and green buildings meeting the needs of a balanced ecology is an emerging and on-demand trend in the Indian and global real estate landscape.”

LEED certification is a rating system designed by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) and is one of the most popular systems for rating buildings worldwide. It ascertains how a building addresses carbon, energy, water, waste, transportation, materials, health, and indoor environmental quality. For Platinum certification, more than 80 credit points are required, for gold certification 60-79 points, and for silver 50-59 points (see box: Cities and certification). Thirty-five per cent of credit points in LEED are related to the impact on climate change, 20 per cent on human health, 15 per cent on water resources, 10 per cent on biodiversity, 10 per cent on green economy, 5 per cent on community and five per cent on natural resources.

“The real estate industry has been very conscious of green buildings for a decade now. With the concept of ESG coming in and carbon neutrality being discussed at conferences like COP 27, green buildings play a very large role in the E of ESG values and the need for LEED certification of buildings will only grow stronger in future,” Ganapathy said.

Speaking to HT, Anubhav Gupta, chief ESG, Sustainability and CSR Officer, at Godrej Properties Limited said, “Real estate development is a resource intensive enterprise with the sector accounting for nearly 40 per cent of world’s energy consumption, 30 per cent of raw material use and 33 per cent of the related global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We need to build sustainably to minimise damage to the environment, conserve resources and deploy solutions to reverse adverse impacts. Today, most responsible developers have integrated green certifications as a part of their development planning.”

Gupta said buyers are also favouring such buildings. “Our research shows that the additional cost of a green building ranges anywhere from two to eight per cent of the cost of construction depending on the level of certification.”