'Green buildings will be ubiquitous in a decade'

An edited version of this Q&A first appeared in DNA Money edition on Tuesday, November 20, 2012.

Phillip Bernstein

A green building is one which uses less water, optimises energy efficiency, conserves natural resources, generates less waste and provides healthier spaces for occupants, as compared to a conventional building. Phillip G Bernstein, vice president - Industry Strategy and Relations, Autodesk Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC) Solutions, delves into the concept of green buildings and its significance in creating a sustainable living environment. Edited excerpts...

Could you throw some light on the green building concept? How has is really evolved over the years?

It’s a great question. I am an architect and I practiced for a long time before joining Autodesk. When I was a student in the late 70s or nearly 80s, we had just come out of big energy crisis. What was called green building back then used to be solar architecture. It was about trying to make buildings use energy more efficiently and that’s all anybody cared about. However, as soon as gas prices went down the whole idea disappeared.

I was talking to one of my professors about the question of solar architecture and I asked him if it was important. He said No, it’s just pluming and that doesn’t mean anything. That was 30 years ago.

Now we have this green building movement, which is about building real estate. While architecture is a cultural phenomenon the green building movement is all about growing awareness of the responsibility of the things that we make and how they affect the environment.

How is the concept different today and what will it be like a decade or so from now?

A lot of real estate developers would talk about green as a marketing idea or something they are being forced to do that cost them extra money. We are in this middle period, where we are trying to think, fighting among ourselves whether it’s important. I think in the third period, which is probably going to start 10 years from now and going forward it will not just be a discussion but a basic part of how buildings should be built.

For example, back in the 1920s in the United States, when building industry was evolving after the civil war the idea of making a building safe for its occupants was optional. It wasn’t required by the law, it wasn’t the part of the regular working or part of the process. Then there was a terrible fire in New York where hundreds of people were killed in a factory. And suddenly the idea of life safety became part of architects and engineers and builders.

We don’t talk about it, you don’t hear a developer ever say you know I am not going to put those sprinklers in that building because it’s going to cost too much or I am not going to build those fire stairs because they are too expensive or I am not going to put any emergency lighting because that costs me too much money. It’s just what we do now and green buildings are going to become what we would basically do to build these structures.

Has global warming necessitated the concept of green buildings?

I live in New York, my house is surrounded with trees and the city is flooded... It’s all global warming, climate change causes it, there’s too much energy in the atmosphere. That energy is caused by solar radiation being trapped in the energy by carbon. Buildings produce 40% of the carbon that we put into the atmosphere, it’s as simple as that. Buildings consume most of the electricity produced, most of the carbon and use most of the water that we use. It’s not optional.

My recent discussion at a green building summit in Hyderabad was if your obligation is to predict the things affecting the environment when making a building or a highway or waste water treatment plant or an airport the best way to do that prediction is to create a digital prototype and test it in digital format first. And that’s not what we do what we do as architects and engineers is make diagrams, then we speculate and we do very quick analysis and what we can do with computer is actually predict what is going to happen.

Are people really taking it up? Is it very specific to developed economies?

It's starting to happen. It’s much better understood concept in the markets where we see deeper penetration towards technology like US, UK, Australia, Singapore etc, so we are getting there. I’ll give you an example, in the UK when the government changed last year, the new prime minister said we are going to a net zero carbon economy. Meaning buildings are no longer going to contribute carbon to the environment and he assigned his bureaucracy the problem of figuring it out how to do this.

One of the things happening in Britain in the following years is the government is now requiring that all government buildings be designed using digital models instead of drawings. So we are going to get the building industry to net zero and use advance technology to do it. They are studying the technology, they are training, they are experimenting, they are writing standards and they are making the change.

So unless it made mandatory by government, it won't be take seriously?

Ultimately it has to be, as those government regulations are manifestations of social desire. In India, I was told at the recent green building conference in Hyderabad, over 60% of the buildings are going to be built in the next 30 years. What it means is that 60% of all the buildings that will exist in India 30 years from now, have not been started yet. These buildings will generate huge amount of carbon, consume huge amount of building materials and huge amount of water. Would you really go about building such kind of infrastructure, without thinking about the effect on the environment? Doesn’t make any sense right?

So the question is what’s the strategy? I watch my colleagues from the Indian green building community trying to figure it out what they need to focus on, they trying to decide and it’s because the opportunity is amiss. And it’s a question of picking the things which they think can be most effective. I do believe that no matter what they decide to do, modernising the methods of the construction industry which includes using advanced digital technology, which is not a new idea.

What are the elements that make for a green building?

The essence of a green building is one that has a minimum amount of impact on the environment and has responsible relation to the environment. Buildings are enormously complex and the process of building them is enormously wasteful. They use huge amount of energy and they produce huge amount of carbon and so a net zero carbon building is one that the design and construction strategy is such that the building does not consume any energy after everything is set and done.

Is doing a green building more costly?

No, not necessarily. What I am saying is, they’ll do what the model says they are being driven to do. They are not going to come here and do out of the goodness in their hearts.  So I build a building which makes a small incremental investment in the infrastructure of a green building. But you would reap the better fruits over the life of the building.

How effective is Indian Green Building Council (IGBC)?

They have done a good job. I think they are just on the cusp of really getting this thing going. They claim they have got 1.26 billion square feet of green building area which sounds impressive and at one level it is. But it’s only couple of 1,000 buildings. They still have to go a long way considering the numbers of building that will be built in the coming years.