Developing Sustainable Housing (Part 1): Taking a Holistic View
April 06, 2021
- By Pallavi Sharma
Guest Writer
(Pallavi Sharma is an independent researcher working on issues of housing and sustainability in India. She holds a postgraduate degree in Climate Science and Policy from TERI university.)
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Indian Housing Federation (IHF).
This blog is the first of a two-part series on sustainable housing. The subsequent piece in the series covers national and international case studies of successful adoption of sustainability principles in housing projects and outlines important recommendations to adopt sustainable housing practices.
The sustainability of housing development for low-income and middle-income households has received increasing attention in recent years. Sustainable housing discourse is seen in the light of the global goals of attaining sustainable development (or the SDGs). It refers to the practices and principles focused on the well-grounded application of sustainable design of houses, innovative methods, fittings and materials used in construction, and maintenance techniques.
Understanding Sustainability in the Housing Context
The national building code (NBC) 2016 provides guidelines for construction of residential and commercial structures. It defines sustainable buildings as those that meet the performance requirements while minimising disturbance to the environment and thereby improving the functioning of local, regional and global ecosystems during construction and the specified service life.
The concept of sustainability has also evolved to widen its applicability. Sustainable development is understood as a principle of fulfilling the needs of today without compromising the needs of the future. It broadly includes three aspects: social, economic and environmental, but the level of importance of an aspect varies contextually.
The table below outlines the different features of sustainability with respect to housing, under the three broad categories.
A nuanced and practical understanding of these aspects reflect into the positive trends towards sustainable housing. However, there are layered challenges in attaining sustainability. For instance, households often aspire to build a brick and mortar house instead of using vernacular material like bamboo, etc. This is because they consider their future needs by investing in long-standing material that would require minimum reparability, while also maintaining a social status in the neighbourhood or community. In this way, an individual household’s attention to the impact on the environment due to use of non-degradable materials and high energy-use appliances gets diluted.
In the discourse of sustainable housing, it is also argued that the high-income households shall effectively practice sustainable housing and set an example that can be replicated by middle and low-income households. The responsibility of sustainability shall not be indiscriminately imposed on low-income households.
Understanding Housing Affordability
The terminologies innate to a particular subject can be multifaceted depending on the perspective from which it is approached. The concept of affordable housing differs with respect to: economic conditions of a region; income of a household; geographical location; standard of living; purchasing power, etc. Broadly, affordable housing should address the housing needs of the low-income households. However, the definition of affordability for housing projects has evolved overtime, as represented in the table below.
Note: *A project qualifies as an affordable housing project when 35 per cent of the units are made for the EWS category.
Figure 1: Evolving definition of housing affordability
Source: Adapted from CSE compilation - Roychowdhury, Sareen and Singh, 2020, Fiscal strategy for affordable housing, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi
Deepak Parekh Committee 2008, calculated affordability based on monthly equated instalment (EMI) as a proportion of the household’s annual income. The task force on affordable housing 2012, calculated borrowing capacity in both presence and absence of subsidies. The current housing scheme Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana - Urban (PMAY-U) sets income criteria corresponding to the size of dwelling units (DUs). It categorises DUs of less than 30 sq m super built up area for the economically weaker section (EWS), 30-60 sq m for low-income group (LIG) and 60-120 sq m for middle-income group (MIG) categories. Housing affordability for low-income households is deliberated widely but continues to remain a challenge in both the purchasing and rental markets.
Why is Housing Sustainability Important?
As per Census 2011, there are 246 million households in India. There are a lot of vernacular architecture techniques used in rural India that are quite sustainable. However, the larger problem is not a lack of sustainable housing, but a progression towards a single brick-and-mortar or RCC model which is relatively unsustainable. With an increase in the development of new housing projects, the discourse on sustainable housing is expanding but is often limited to environmental and economic aspects, ignoring the social aspect. Planners and architects must adopt a holistic framework that incorporates social equity as well.
Housing includes access to basic amenities like water supply, sanitation, power supply, etc. The magnitude of use of resources needs sustainable practices. Residential buildings account for 75 percent of total electricity consumed in the building sector (Eco-Niwas Samhita, 2018). According to International Energy Agency (IEA) 2019 estimates, the building sector accounts for 28 percent energy related CO2 emissions. In this percentage, direct emissions are around 10 percent while two–third is indirect emissions from electricity generation for use in buildings. Currently, PMAY-U targets construction of over 1 crore households by 2022. Households belonging to the EWS category form a significant target group for the mission. Given the volume of construction, it is also important to focus attention on sustainable housing for this category.
Green concepts and techniques in the affordable housing sector can help attain reduction in energy and water consumption; improved health, hygiene, sanitation; better ventilation and light in the dwellings; etc. The importance and impact of incorporating principles of sustainability in affordable housing will be substantial.
International and National Guidelines for Sustainable Housing
The aim of achieving urban development and infrastructural requirement in the next decades, has encouraged proactive deliberations for the envisioned future. India is a part of international non-binding commitments towards the goal of sustainable development. Sustainable housing is intrinsically involved in these agendas. The following table lists important international provisions that directly discuss sustainable housing.
International Guidelines
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 2015
- Sustainable Development Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
- The goal aims to ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgradation of slums.
- It encourages inclusive and sustainable urbanisation, enhanced capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management.
The Right to Adequate Housing, 2014
- Defines adequacy using the following parameters: security of tenure; availability of services; affordability; habitability; accessibility; location; and cultural adequacy.
The New Urban Agenda, 2016
- It defines housing as a component of adequate standard of living without discrimination, universal access to safe and affordable drinking water and sanitation.
- It suggests the promotion of the role of affordable and sustainable housing, housing finance and including social habitat production with economic development.
- It acknowledges the contribution of the sector in stimulating productivity of other economic sectors. It recognises that housing enhances capital formation, income, employment generation and savings.
- It promotes measures for strengthening and retrofitting all risky housing stock, including the houses in informal settlements, making it resilient to disasters, in coordination with local authorities and stakeholders.
Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2015-2030
- It recommends to strengthen the design and implementation of inclusive policies and social safety-net mechanisms, through community involvement. The mechanisms are integrated with housing to find durable solutions in the post-disaster phase and to empower and assist people disproportionately affected by disaster.
- It promotes the mainstreaming of disaster risk assessments into land-use policy development and implementation, including non-permanent housing, and the use of guidelines and follow-up tools based on anticipated demographic and environmental changes.
National Guidelines
In India, housing is a state subject, but the central government carries policies and programmes at a national level that help in overall housing development. The National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy (NUHHP), 2007, laid emphasis on ‘affordable housing for all’ and encouraged states to make housing action plans that envisioned sustainable development in habitat. India has developed a number of guidance frameworks, benchmarks, competitive schemes and rating guidelines that promote sustainable housing. The following table depicts the notable provisions at the national level with respect to sustainable housing.
1. National Mission on Sustainable Habitat, (part of National Action Plan on Climate Change, 2008)
3. National Building Code, Volume 2, part 11, Approach to sustainability
(Bureau of Indian Standards)
4. Eco Niwas Samhita, 2018 (Ministry of Power)
Additionally, the Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC) works to develop and operationalise a comprehensive and integrated approach for the promotion of environment-friendly and energy-efficient innovative building materials and construction processes. It has put forward manuals on cost effective, environment-friendly materials and new emerging technologies that support sustainable housing. However, these are only preferable options and not mandatory provisions. Under the technology sub-mission of PMAY-U, BMTPC is also responsible for construction of regional Demonstration Housing Projects (DHPs) by using green and affordable technologies.
Consortia for Sustainability in Middle-Income Housing Projects
In addition to various schemes and programmes, the central or state governments form consortiums with academic partners and practitioners. For example:
The ongoing RESIDE project (2017- 2021) funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (GoI) and United Kingdom-based Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is supported by knowledge partners such as the Oxford Brookes University; University of the West of England; Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur; and International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad. RESIDE is a research initiative to create a knowledge base for the improvement of living conditions and to assess the different aspects of the residential energy use challenges. It is focussed on reduction in building energy demand through research and pilot studies.
Mainstreaming Sustainable Social Housing in India Project (MaS-SHIP) in 2016- 2018, was a multi- party private sector consortium that helped create a sustainable assessment tool and decision support system to promote sustainability in social housing in India.
A consortium titled Sustainable Housing Leadership Consortium (SHLC) was convened in 2016 as part of the Eco-cities India Programme. SHLC is supported by the International Finance Commission and European Union. It has brought the leading real estate developers and financial institutions together to encourage policy action and devise a framework for enabling sustainable housing in India’s real estate sector. The consortium has engaged Indian Institute of Human Settlements (IIHS) and The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) as knowledge partners. The Green Homes Campaign of SLHC has aimed to have 20 percent of new residential buildings to be green by 2022.
Initiatives for Sustainability in Low-Income Housing Projects
Non-government Initiatives
At ground level, there are a number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), non-profits and voluntary groups that are cognizant of the global challenges and strategically engage with communities, the workforce and developers. These NGOs provide training to the communities with regard to material choices, design changes, available finances, etc. and provide support in addressing their needs for sustainable housing. Some organisations engaged in this work are: mHS City Lab, Shelter Associates, Centre for Urban and Regional Excellence (CURE), Centre of Science and Technology For Rural Development (COSTFORD), Habitat Technology Group, Cooperative Housing Foundation (CHF India), Society For The Promotion of Area Resource Centers (SPARC), Assist Foundation and Habitat for Humanity (HfH). Organisations working on the academic aspects of sustainability include: TERI, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), DA and IIHS.
Government Initiatives
The Technology Sub-mission under the PMAY-U facilitated the adoption of innovative and green technologies, layout designs, disaster resilient technologies and building material for quality construction of houses suitable for various geo-climatic zones. Centre and state governments were encouraged to partner with willing engineering, planning and architecture institutes for developing technical solutions and capacity building.
This sub-mission was later merged with the Global Housing Technology Challenge - India (GHTC-India). It promotes diverse innovative and cost-effective construction technologies through a competitive process. It aims to demonstrate and deliver ready to live-in houses with high-quality construction in a sustainable manner, and in minimum time and cost. This challenge seeks to promote future potential technologies through incubation support and accelerator workshops, in order to foster an environment of research and development in the country. Currently, six Light House Projects (LHPs) are being developed under GHTC-India. The LHPs aim to demonstrate innovative construction technologies that are cost-effective and sustainable. For use of innovative technology in construction, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) had introduced a Technology Innovation Grant as an additional grant of Rs 4 lakhs per house in addition to the existing share of Rs 1.5 lakhs per house under PMAY-U for LHPs.
Since February 2021, MoHUA, BMTPC and School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), Delhi are jointly offering a course on ‘Innovative Construction Technologies’ as part of the initiative called NAVARITIH (New Affordable Validated Research Innovation Technologies for Indian Housing). The course aims to introduce the latest materials and technologies being used worldwide for housing construction. It aims to familiarise participants with technologies in terms of properties, specifications, sustainability, performance, design and construction methodologies. The course also highlights some projects which have been implemented successfully by using such innovations. Such courses are useful not only for students but also for professionals in the sector.
Rating Assessments for Green Buildings in Middle-Income Housing Projects
The acknowledgement of the importance of sustainability in buildings has extended to academics and businesses. A number of assessment frameworks in India provide certifications in the form of star ratings to mark the levels of sustainability achieved for green buildings. Some businesses engage in sustainability right from the inception of the project, through consultation and orientation workshops. Depending on the manner of assessment, the rating agencies undertake field visits to assess compliance in progress followed by an assessment at completion of the projects. These compliances are voluntary in nature. Some of the benefits include reduction in energy and water consumption, better ventilation and lighting through design suggestions, better management of waste and sometimes social dimensions like proximity to transportation services. These were initially taken up in commercial projects as energy rating which helped them gain carbon credits and incurred savings. Several states in India have made provisions for adoption of green ratings for new buildings, though these are voluntary in nature.
Sustainability ratings for residential buildings started fairly recently. The two leading assessment frameworks are Green Rating for Integrated Rating Assessment (GRIHA) by TERI and Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). They have also created segments for affordable housing with the launch of PMAY-U.
All projects that have approval or sanction issued by the central or state government are eligible for GRIHA-AH ratings. There are two categories based on built up area - 5,000 sq m or below, and above 5,000 sq m. Registration and rating fee is Rs 3 lakhs plus taxes for the former category and an additional Rs 9 per sq m for the latter.
The IGBC had launched the Green Affordable Housing Rating to ensure quality housing with a high degree of sustainability. It charges registration fee, pre-certification fee and certification fee with respect to the number of dwelling units (DUs). For example, for IGBC members, 500 DUs carry a fee of Rs 2.2 lakhs fees, while for 1,000 DUs the fee is over Rs 5 lakhs. The cost escalates for non-members.
Given the fee structures, these schemes cater to large developers. These rating criteria do not apply to housing developments for the EWS households under the Beneficiary Led Construction/Enhancement (BLC) vertical of PMAY-U. There are some challenges that prevent the adoption of these assessment frameworks or certifications in India which need to be addressed. These challenges include: the discrepancy between projected and actual sustainability performance of the buildings; low capacities at the implementation level leading to poor quality of construction; fragmentation of certification markets; and deficient policy incentives where applicable.
The Central Public Works Department (CPWD) under MoHUA shared a manual for green rating in 2019. The CPWD is involved in construction for the public works sector including - buildings, roads, bridges, flyovers, complicated structures like stadiums, auditoriums, laboratories, bunkers, border fencing, border roads, hill roads, etc. These guidelines need to adapt to the housing and specifically low-income housing sector. The ECBC, Eco Niwas Samhita by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) provides analytical tools for sustainability. This can be utilised by small-scale developers as well as individual homeowners. However, they focus only on energy conservation and not on the other important aspects of sustainability. Hence, there is a need for making a sustainability assessment framework for low-income groups (LIG) and ensuring its viability for them.
References
Eco-Niwas Samhita 2018, Energy Conservation Building Code for Residential Buildings, Part I: Building Envelope, 8 Bureau of Energy Efficiency, Ministry of Power, Government of India. https://www.econiwas.com/econiwascontrol/bower_components/ckeditor/kcfinder/upload/files/1.Workshop%20Presentation%201%20-%20Training%20Presentation_Training%20A_20.03.2020%20.pdf
Development Alternative. (2014). Sustainable Social Housing Initiative. Development Altenative. Retrieved from https://smartnet.niua.org/sites/default/files/resources/Sustainable%20Social%20Housing%20Initiative.pdf
Roychowdhury A., Sareen R., and Singh M. (2020). Fiscal strategy for affordable housing, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi. https://www.cseindia.org/fiscal-strategy-for-affordable-housing-10279
GRIHA for Affordable Housing. https://www.grihaindia.org/griha-ah
Sustainable Housing Leadership Consortium https://www.ecocities.in/index.php/node/45
RESIDE Project https://www.reside-energy.org/
UN-Habitat. (2012). Retrieved from https://unhabitat.org/sustainable-housing-for-sustainable-cities-a-policy-framework-for-developing-cities