The green fad

AHMEDABAD: One of the city's oldest green assets are the traditional pols on the east banks of the Sabarmati river. Well ventilated and equipped with rain water harvesting systems, these homes have building engineering techniques that bring down temperatures by a few degrees.
Contrarily, a survey by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, showed at least 25 per cent of offices and shops and 20 per cent residential buildings in the city, mostly in the western areas, use air conditioners, which contribute to global warming.
However, the civic body has now begun taking steps to reducing these threats. Ahmedabad was shortlisted among 90 cities in the world to be rated on the global low carbon city index (GLCCI) in 2009. The rating was by international council for environmental is-sues of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
A new wave of constructing green buildings has caught on. Till six years ago, there was just one building - the ABN-AMRO office at Parimal garden - which has platinum certification under Indian Green Building Council (IGBC). Today there more than 40 buildings that have applied for certifications and are equally competent to certification.
Gujarat chairman of IGBC Sameer Sinha says, "Adopting green technologies makes sense in Ahmedabad as we pay the highest electricity bills. The pay back period for a green-tech investment in Gujarat is two years, unlike five years in other states."
He says the new green buildings reuse 60 per cent of water used, some even run their water-based air conditioning units. Adopting green technology in buildings can reduce up to 30 per cent in electricity bills, Sinha adds.
The city now has more than 65,000 autorickshaws and 900 buses running on CNG, reducing carbon emissions by 20 lakh metric tonnes per annum. The ambitious BRTS also helped reduce carbon footprint by 25 per cent. For reducing urban heat islands, AMC's policy changes have led to almost 25 per cent of newly constructed buildings having white roofs made of Chinese mosaic that reflect heat. Besides, development control regulations have made it mandatory for three to four times of the built-up area to be reserved for greening.
The civic body also replaced about 18,000 high voltage streetlight bulbs with 11 watt compact fluorescent lamps (CFL), thereby conserving energy. About 20 per cent traffic lights run on solar power, while 70 per cent of the traffic lights have 15 watt light emitting diode (LED) lamps. In terms of waste management, measures are being taken to convert 1,500 tonnes of garbage to power source, while about 500 tonnes of organic waste is being converted to compost.