For Sustainable Buildings, Circularity Must be at Centre of Construction: Experts

With air quality in Delhi-NCR slipping in and out of the choke zone, the winter of 2024 has already put the city’s life on ice—and its only November. Construction activities in the region have sputtered to a near halt, struck by frequent spells of GRAP—a set of stringent regulations of the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) to clear the air in and around the smogged-out capital.

The raft of restrictions imposed by GRAP includes a bar on construction and demolition activities, robing countless construction workers of their daily wages and derailing crucial infrastructure projects, with no meaningful gains for the city or its gasping citizens. Experts are unanimous that banning construction activities is at best a stopgap measure, a knee-jerk response to the severe pollution that grips Delhi every winter, exacerbated by a sector that has simply not kept pace with sustainable construction practices. Worse, experts believe that transitioning the industry to sustainable behaviour will be a challenging task.

At the 11th edition of India and Sustainability Standards, organised by the Centre for Responsible Business (CRB), experts doubled down on two action points: intervention through intense sustainability education and urging the industry to adopt circularity-related practices

Owing to its sheer scale and impact on environment, infrastructure has leapfrogged to the centre-stage of global climate politics. By 2030, global spends on construction are expected to touch $17.5 trillion, led by China, the US and India. The Modi government has committed to spend 3.4% of country’s GDP on infrastructure in the fiscal year 2024-25. Other than infrastructure projects, the primary driver of the sector is the booming demand for residential and commercial buildings.

Delhi-based architect Nirmal Kulkarni is convinced that from design to execution, every link in the infrastructure value chain must not only embrace the principles of circularity but practice them rigorously. “The trouble is the lack of education. With circularity not being taught at schools or colleges, there is simply no awareness,” he contends. “For building sustainable infrastructure we need to embed circularity across the entire ecosystem and move away from a project-specific approach.” Most experts agree with him that children need to be exposed to the principles of circular design as a subject at primary and secondary levels in schools.

Kulkarni, founder of the not-for-profit organization, ‘Investigating Design’, conducts workshops for the children of the workers, introducing them to sustainable best practices in construction. He has also led school initiatives to creatively repurpose construction-related waste materials. Kulkarni’s next target is to involve architecture students. “Education around sustainability need to go much deeper,” says Sarabjit Singh Sahota, Emergency Specialist from Disaster Risk Reduction section of UNICEF.

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Industry practitioners highlight that the rampant use of country-fired bricks in the construction sector have caused large-scale topsoil loss over the years. Such environment damage is caused mainly by two reasons. First, construction methods have not changed noticeably in the country over the last 60 years, experts note. Second, despite the country boasting a large number of excellent engineering colleges, its construction sites continue to rely largely on untrained masons.

The government plays a pivotal role in the construction sector driving the majority of activities. Experts emphasise that through its policies and initiatives, the government has the power to persuade the industry to adopt sustainable construction practices.

In 2024 under the ambitious “Housing for All” programme, the government announced plans to build 2.95 crore houses. Experts believe that the critical question is not whether the target is achievable, but about how these houses will be constructed. Factors such as the choice of materials, the efficiency of equipment and energy consumption involved in heating and cooling, must all be considered to ensure sustainability, they say.

However, when it comes to policy and support there is a noticeable gap. Ankur Bisen of Technopak Advisors highlights the lack of attention to construction-related issues in political manifestos. "What should be the public-to-private space ratio in a city? Are we designing cooling solutions to combat climate change? Are provisions for rainwater harvesting being made?” These technical discussions, he argues, must be integrated into urban design. Bisen also calls for broader political dialogue on accountability, particularly in addressing the division of responsibilities between the centre and the states