Suresh Prabhu urges States to extend incentives for green buildings

All States governments and local bodies should “give huge concessions to green buildings certified by CII-IGBC” towards ensuring wider adoption of the concept, he said

Former Union Minister Suresh Prabhu on Thursday underscored the need for State governments to incentivise CII-Indian Green Building Council rated Green Buildings.

All States governments and local bodies should “give huge concessions to green buildings certified by CII-IGBC” towards ensuring wider adoption of the concepts, Mr.Prabhu, who is also the founding Chancellor of Rishihood University, told inaugural session of the 20th edition of Green Building Congress.

He also urged the Council to work towards popularising green building concepts in smaller buildings so that the benefits are widespread. If required, a system of cross subsidy as part of which larger structures seeking certification pay more and the smaller buildings relatively less may be considered.

Commending IGBC’s work, Mr.Prabhu stressed the need for all concerned to look beyond Net Zero goals and work towards holistic strategies in view of the challenges posed by climate change.

A flagship event of IGBC, the three-day Green Building Congress, coinciding with which is a Green Expo, is being conducted at HICC-Novotel here. The expo showcases over 1,000 green building products, services and technologies and over 10,000 visitors are expected to the expo, the organisers said.

National Chairman of CII-IGBC Gurmit Singh Arora said the IGBC has achieved 9.75 billion sq ft of green building footprint across more than 8,600 projects in the country and is on course to touch 10 billion sq ft by December.

IGBC NEST, a rating programme for self-developed housing projects to go green and updated versions of the IGBC Green Factory Rating System, IGBC Green Affordable Housing Rating System and IGBC Green Resorts Ratings System were launched at the event. CII Telangana Vice Chairman and IGBC Hyderabad Chapter Chairman C.Shekar Reddy, National Vice Chairman of IGBC B.Thiagarajan and Anna Shotbolt, Deputy Trade Commissioner, British High Commission Delhi spoke.