The dark clouds

The dark clouds ED’s Note Recently, a post on my Facebook wall read something like this: the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. Scaling it to 46 years, we’ve been here for 4 hours, and our industrial revolution began just a minute ago. In that time, we have destroyed more than 50 percent of the world’s forests. Indeed, the veracity of the facts presented in the post can be debated and discussed, but we can’t debunk them anymore. It is a no-brainer that the current model of growth and progress is no more sustainable from an economic and ecological point of view. India stands to be impacted relatively more severely, if a recent World Economic Forum (WEF) report is to be any indicator. The annual Global Competitiveness Report by WEF underscores the co-relation of sustainability and economic well-being. For the first time, WEF has come up with sustainability-adjusted Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), a metric that intends to assess the “the set of institutions, policies and factors that make a nation remain productive over the longer term while ensuring social and environmental sustainability”. India, the world’s second-largest country by population, scores rather poorly on the new metric. Of the 144 countries ranked on the GCI scale, India slipped in rank from 56 to 59. That’s not the worst part though. When the sustainability metrics—social and environmental—were integrated, India’s overall score fell from 4.32 to 3.73, on a scale of seven. Moreover, India was the worst performer among the BRIC nations, far behind others in the group. The writing is clear on the wall, and indeed our government needs to draft thorough legislations that also incentivize the corporate sector to accelerate the green uptake, but the industry too needs to proactively find ways and means in which they can cut their carbon footprints. This requires a holistic approach, inside-out and outside-in. A good place to start would be the green buildings. Over the past couple of years, green buildings as a concept have gained momentum, thanks to the financial windfall it brought with certified emission reductions (CERs). The good thing is now it’s going apace, sim- ply because of the sheer savings in terms of energy consumption. The movement has caught up so much these days that outside of the US, India has the highest number of LEED-rated buildings in the world. Considering this, SustaiNuance decided to dedicate a whole issue to green buildings, discussing the benefits, the how-to and even the contro- versies around the rating standards. Celebrated Indian architect Hafeez Contractor too shares his candid views on the green building movement, and why he thinks (or rather not) that the rating business is a joke when it comes to India. Needless to say, we are all ears to whatever comments, quips or thoughts that you have on the subject or on the magazine. I would encour- age you to drop me a line at [email protected]. Green regards till we meet next month.. A silver lining is that India has the highest number of LEED-rated buildings after the US External links on sustainability http://www.weforum.org/reports http://www.sustainability.com/blog http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainability/blog Shashwat DC Editor -in-Chief October 2012 Sustainuance 3

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Transcript of The dark clouds

The dark clouds

ED’s Note

Recently, a post on my Facebook wall read something like this: the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. Scaling it to 46 years, we’ve been here for 4 hours, and our industrial revolution began just a minute ago. In that time, we have destroyed more than 50 percent of the world’s forests.

Indeed, the veracity of the facts presented in the post can be debated and discussed, but we can’t debunk them anymore. It is a no-brainer that the current model of growth and progress is no more sustainable from an economic and ecological point of view. India stands to be impacted relatively more severely, if a recent World Economic Forum (WEF) report is to be any indicator.

The annual Global Competitiveness Report by WEF underscores the co-relation of sustainability and economic well-being. For the first time, WEF has come up with sustainability-adjusted Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), a metric that intends to assess the “the set of institutions, policies and factors that make a nation remain productive over the longer term while ensuring social and environmental sustainability”. India, the world’s second-largest country by population, scores rather poorly on the new metric. Of the 144 countries ranked on the GCI scale, India slipped in rank from 56 to 59.

That’s not the worst part though. When the sustainability metrics—social and environmental—were

integrated, India’s overall score fell from 4.32 to 3.73, on a scale of seven. Moreover, India was the worst performer among the BRIC nations, far behind others in the group.

The writing is clear on the wall, and indeed our government needs to draft thorough legislations that also incentivize the corporate sector to accelerate the green uptake, but the industry too needs to proactively find ways and means in which they can cut their carbon footprints. This requires a holistic approach, inside-out and outside-in.

A good place to start would be the green buildings. Over the past couple of years, green buildings as a concept have gained

momentum, thanks to the financial windfall it brought with certified emission reductions (CERs). The good thing is now it’s going apace, sim-ply because of the sheer savings in terms of energy consumption. The movement has caught up so much these days that outside of the US, India has the highest number of LEED-rated buildings in the world.

Considering this, SustaiNuance decided to dedicate a whole issue to green buildings, discussing the benefits, the how-to and even the contro-versies around the rating standards. Celebrated Indian architect Hafeez Contractor too shares his candid views on the green building movement, and why he thinks (or rather not) that the rating business is a joke when it comes to India.

Needless to say, we are all ears to whatever comments, quips or thoughts that you have on the subject or on the magazine. I would encour-age you to drop me a line at [email protected]. Green regards till we meet next month..

A silver lining is that India

has the highest number of

LEED-rated buildings after

the US

External links on sustainability

http://www.weforum.org/reportshttp://www.sustainability.com/bloghttp://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainability/blog

Shashwat DC Editor -in-Chief

October 2012 Sustainuance 3