Green ratings for your house
Jagvir Goyal
The recent focus on climate change has made every industry aware of aiming for green products. By green products we mean environment friendly products. To assess the environment-friendliness of a product, the best way is to devise green ratings for the building products and the buildings themselves.
How Green Ratings help The star ratings for energy efficient products were developed by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), only a few years ago. Maximum stars were given to the most energy-efficient appliances, while least stars were given to least energy-efficient products. The concept became popular very fast as it became very easy for the customer to know the energy efficiency level of a product just by looking at the number of stars assigned to it. The same concept needs to be applied to other products that affect the environment. For example, in case of bathroom fittings, such a concept can be used to assign maximum number of stars to products conserving maximum quantity of water and least number of stars to products that bring no saving in water. Other products used in a house can also be treated similar way.
GRIHA Ratings: For evaluation of buildings, GRIHA ratings have been devised in India. GRIHA, short for Green Ratings for Integrated Habitat Assessment, is a rating tool to check the environmental performance of buildings and their components by comparing their performance with certain fixed benchmarks. GRIHA, therefore, helps in minimising wastage of water, energy and other resources, optimising consumption of resources and minimising ecological impact of the buildings and their products. GRIHA has been adopted as national rating system by the Government of India to check whether a building can be labelled as a green building or not.
GRIHA criteria: In order to rate a building, GRIHA has evolved 34 criteria. These criteria are related to various aspects of a building such as site selection, conservation of resources, maintenance aspects, use of low energy materials in interiors, developing landscape that has least water demand and so on. Out of these 34 criteria, 8 are mandatory for each building, 4 are partially mandatory and the rest are optional. Each criteria, when fulfilled, secures certain points for the building. The number of points secured by a building must be 50 or more for terming it as a green building. Total number of points is 100. These points are further related to stars. Like electrical appliances, a building can also be rated as one star, two star and maximum up to five stars. Therefore, each component of the building has to meet green building norms to earn certain points for the building.
GRIHA stars: A building has to earn a minimum of 50 points out of a total 100 to qualify for Green Rating. A building earning 50 to 60 points earns one star. A building earning 61 to 70 points gets 2 stars. Three stars are given to a building earning 71 to 80 points. A building earning 81 to 90 points gets 4 stars. And finally, 5 stars are given to a building earning 91 to 100 points. Thus, the buildings are deigned to have such layout and equipped with such products that help the building in getting maximum number of stars.
Area for GRIHA Buildings: All buildings that have an area of more than 2,500 square meters are rated by using GRIHA rating system. These buildings may be of any kind such as residential buildings, multi-storeyed apartments, high-rise buildings, office buildings and so on. For smaller buildings, having area less than 2,500 square meters, another rating system called SVAGRIHA is used. Thus GRIHA rating system is for buildings have area more than 2,500 sq. meters while SVAGRIHA rating system is used for buildings having area less than 2,500 sq. meters.
SVAGRIHA Ratings: SVAGRIHA ratings are used to check the green status of buildings having an area less than 2500 square meters. SVAGRIHA means Small Versatile Affordable GRIHA. SVAGRIHA has the criteria of 50 points. It is simpler, faster and more affordable rating system than GRIHA. For individual residences, small offices and buildings, this system is more suitable. If you want to check the green status of your house, SVAGRIHA is the right rating system for that. While GRIHA ratings need a full team of experts and professionals to evaluate a building, SVAGRIHA calculations can be done even by the architect of your house.
SVAGRIHA criteria: While the GRIHA ratings are based on 34 criteria as described above, SVAGRIHA has only 14 criteria to find out the green rating of the house or building. Most of the information required for it can be worked out from the drawings of your house, prepared by the architect. For SVAGRIHA, areas of the house or building, quantities of materials, specifications of the materials etc are required. The 14 criteria under SVAGRIHA are divided into 5 groups. The groups are energy, water, materials, landscape and other things. Under each group, certain points are mandatory to be achieved to acquire SVAGRIHA rating and green status for your house.
SVAGRIHA Stars: Under SVAGRIHA rating system, a minimum of 25 points out of total 50 points must be achieved by your house. Thereafter, a building is given one star if it has achieved 25 to 30 points. Two stars are given when the building has acquired 30 to 35 points. A building earning 35 to 40 points gets 3 stars. Similarly 4 stars are assigned to buildings achieving 41-45 points. When the building achieves cent percent criteria or 46 to 50 points, it is rated as a five star building.
Products for each criteria: Under each criterion of GRIHA as well as SVAGRIHA, certain products that are to be used to fulfil that criterion can be listed. For example, criterion 11 of SVAGRIHA says that 'Reduce embodied energy of the building'. Therefore, products that are used in the interiors of the house or building can be listed under criterion 11. These include false ceiling, internal partitions, fly ash bricks or AAC blocks, external glazing, glazing films, roof panels, inbuilt furniture and rain water harvesting filter system. Under criterion 8 of SVAGRIHA that demands reduction in building and landscape water demand, low flow water fixtures can be listed. Similarly under each of the 14 criteria of SVAGRIHA applicable for the houses, certain products that contribute towards that criterion can be listed.
Choosing green products
To help the house builders or other builders, GRIHA council has done an elaborate exercise. It has enlisted all such products on its website that fulfil any criterion. An extensive product catalogue has been maintained by the council. The house builder has to first choose the Rating version i.e. GRIHA or SVAGRIHA under which he wants to get his house or building evaluated as green house or green building. In case of houses, the area being less than 2,500 square meter, SVAGRIHA will be applicable. Then he has to choose the criteria under which he wants to select a product. Suppose he chooses SVAGRIHA rating system for his house and further chooses Criterion 8 under it. Now Criterion 8 relates to reduction of water demand in the building. So a list of all low flow fixtures will appear before him. These products are listed manufacturer wise and full address of the company, details of its contact persons and contact numbers are provided in the product catalogue. Further, the products granted green status are also listed besides the company address along with their photographs. It therefore becomes very easy for the house builder to choose a green product and procure it from the manufacturer.
— The writer is HOD and Engineer-in-Chief, Civil Engineering Department in a Punjab PSU
