Green bricks in a grey wall - CIOL News Reports

Green bricks in a grey wall

They fall in the 'why-not' genre rather than the 'why' bucket of stories. And it's pleasant to see that green buildings are becoming a matter-of-course sight on the expansion drawing boards of IT behemoths. No doubt, green architecture is catching up but here are some of its interesting dimensions. Read on.

Pratima Harigunani

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

PUNE,INDIA: A 25-acre campus in Greater Noida with a seating capacity for 12,000 is on its way at NIIT Technologies. Symantec is already into the green channel

Symantec is already into the green channel

Hexaware is all set to pump in about Rs..350 crore on its new campus in Chennai that would be housed on over 27 acres of land, with a built-up area of 1.2 million sq ft.

Delicious numbers make appetizing headlines. But the most savoury ingredient in these headlines is something else. Both these campuses draw their unique colour from the underlying strategy which is tinged all green. They are a vital part of the green initiatives at their respective boardrooms, and to define in short – the Green campuses.

Both these campuses are in progress with the first phase rolling already. NIIT will finish the first phase of its green campus, by the year-end completing 3000 seats in capacity, henceforth expanding capacity in blocks.

For Hexaware, the first phase will cover a 7,50,000 sq ft built up area and will house around 5000 employees. The remaining two phases will be completed within five years and will cover the balance area and total 9,000 seating capacity.

Industry peers like HP and Symantec have already ventured forth on the green aisle. This might be just a glimpse of the green tide that's waking up in the corner rooms of the industry along with strategies around virtualization, server consolidation, power economy, e-waste reduction etc.

Green buildings are all set to blossom far and wide. So what goes behind, inside and further?

Green provokes

Environmental responsibility, sustainable development, putting green into practice set the rationale for green buildings. Buildings account for a significant portion of India's energy consumption at nearly 30 per cent.

Addressing responsible energy efficiency and environmental impact is a significant step towards managing that consumption, argues Milind Godbole, regional general manager (RGM), Honeywell Building Solutions (HBS), India Region.

Satish Syal, CIO, NIIT was struck by the green arrow two years back when the blueprint work started. "We had an internal agenda and it was motivating to see how different countries were putting IT and environment together. At the design stage itself, it made sense to contribute to environment as a mass of people would be operating out of the new building."

"We wanted to provide our employees a state-of-the-art green campus. Also Chennai is an important part of the knowledge industry and the emphasis given by the Tamil Nadu government on infrastructure development prompted us to build a world-class campus." Says Deependra L. Chumble, Chief People Officer, Hexaware Technologies Ltd.

Symantec has also tried the green lure in Culver City.

"We had outgrown our prior space in Santa Monica and needed a new, larger facility. We felt it was better to own the new facility and thus build it from scratch... As such, we used the LEED standards as a guide for environmental standards for the building as we drew up the architecture plans and constructed the building. It's the first LEED certified building in Culver City, CA." shares Luigi Sciabarrasi, vice president, Real Estate and Facilities, Symantec Corporation.

How 'Green' works

According to a Forrester report, 'IT suppliers and their corporate customers are changing the way computing assets are designed manufactured, operated, and disposed of to gain efficiency and the cost savings while reducing environmentally harmful impacts.

'Build, Operate and Dispose' are, incidentally, also the three key pieces of a green building as Syal sees it.

“Right now, we are more worried about the 'Built' stage. 'Operate' will come later but the design has to be put in place. 'Disposal' is what comes at the last,” he shares.

The scope of green IT is distributed in various dimensions. The 'design' facet takes care of creating energy-efficient systems, improving power-handling efficiency and building more manageable systems.

Talk of the 'operate' facet and there is a string of areas to be looked at. Managing PC and client devices, cooling data centers more efficiently, actively managing application workloads, incorporating green criteria into procurement and sourcing alternative energy and carbon offsets fall in place here. There's a lot to take care in the 'disposal' end too.

So when NIIT worked on the 'Built & Operate' as a concept, it thought of how much open space to account for and how much of the high-rise to be optimized. This was intended to take care of the land loss and give away more open area for green plantation.

A green building Vs a normal one

Green buildings look, work, feel and live differently from their erstwhile precedents.

From energy efficient power arteries, solar energy inclinations, sensor-based lighting, verdant open spaces all around to environmentally-oriented cooling, heating, waste-treatment and disposal systems, green campuses do stand apart as comprehensively as possible.

To start with, visible verdure and inherent greenery are no doubt obvious components of the green colour of such campuses.

The entire Hexaware Campus will be a smoke-free zone. Extensive natural landscaping in the form of terrace gardens will be used to cool the buildings. NIIT's campus, similarly, will have the entire site developed by planting 10 to 12 high trees and most of the existing trees shall be replanted and preserved.

At Symantec's campus, native foliage has been used outside of the building to cut down on water usage.

In one of the earlier examples, an HP's campus in India sprawling across a 23-acre facility, as per some earlier reports comprised 70 per cent greenery with the concrete structures that house the employees taking up only 30 per cent of the area.

HP had claimed that not a single tree had been uprooted during construction and that the structures have been actually built around trees.

Waste management is another important piece of the green architecture.

At Hexaware's new campus, energy conservation methods will be deployed and 100 per cent treatment of wastewater generated will take place. Treated water would be used for keeping up the landscape at the campus and materials of high recycle contents are intended to be used in the project.

At NIIT's upcoming campus, apart from the rainwater harvesting, the wastewater shall be treated and shall be reused for air-conditioning and irrigation.

There would be urinals with sensors for water conservation as well as use of insulation on all external walls to reduce the solar heat gain through them.

Another important part of such buildings is the significance of solar energy and appropriate lighting systems.

Taking Symantec's Culver City project as an example shows the building's exo-skeleton is completely made of glass so that 90 per cent of employees have access to sunlight. The glass has a film on it, which blocks out 70 per cent of UV rays to let daylight in but keep the heat out. The building's roof is completely white, which also reflects heat and sunlight, also helping to keep the building cool at this campus.

From another angle to the solar spotlight, solar passive architectural design strategies are being adopted at NIIT's new campus and provision for natural daylight has been kept by providing open central courtyards. Syal claims that there would be in addition use of over deck insulation to cut off solar heat through ceiling.

The Chennai campus of Hexaware also focuses that the solar energy will be generated and used appropriately.

Another unique bit about such campuses is the point of high-rise buildings the absence of which is claimed emphatically at Hexaware campus. At NIIT too, focus had been laid on open spaces along with more efforts on optimization on the high-rise.

NIIT's new campus illustrates many other ideas and initiatives. Use of VAVs in for energy-efficient air-conditioning, use of VFDs with all AHUs and secondary chilled water pumps to increase energy efficiency of the air-conditioning system, use of energy recovery wheels with VFDs to reduce the energy bill for fresh air supply in the conditioned space, use of solar water heating system add to this list.

Another unique feature claimed at the Symantec campus is the air conditioning system that has the air coming out of vents from the floor rather than from the ceiling. Vents in the ceiling suck up the warm air and recycle it throughout the building for better circulation.

"Each employee thus has better control over the temperature of their work environment since each office/cubicle has its own floor vent that can be adjusted." Sciabarrasi explains. He says the building's plumbing system is also built to be as water efficient as possible.

Green pays

Do green buildings satisfy the economic rationale as arguably as the ecological one?

NIIT's Syal answers in the affirmative. "We can reduce expenses in the long-term and that's clearly tied down to our profits." Though capital costs are high on the onset with government incentives much can be achieved. Green has to make economic sense, he adds.

Another potential economic advantage of green buildings could be carbon credits. Or not? For NIIT, as Syal responds, making carbon credits is not the criteria at the moment but if the same can ultimately generate some business.

As per Syal, green is as good for carbon footprint as it is for expenses.

But there are other advantages galore when the green mortar is built.

The operations and maintenance at the Hexaware campus, which is certified by these LEED ((Leadership in Environmental & Energy Design) assessors (US Green Building Council), is designed to be high-energy savings which would result in around 25 to 30 per cent energy saving.

"The campus becomes nature friendly and also helps to establish a good overall ambience. This in turn helps in improving the productivity of the employees. While it increasingly helps in energy savings, it also reduces the operational and maintenance costs." Explains Chumble.

Symantec dovetails here outlining that the benefits are partly financial long term, such as saving in energy costs. "Just as importantly, it creates a work environment that's more worker-friendly, where they have better light and fresher air." Sciabarrasi feels.

As a proof of the pudding, HBS cites that its intelligent building management systems have globally saved nearly $2 billion in energy costs and $1.2 billion in operational costs across thousands of facilities. Godbole asserts that apart from the certification itself; there are many measurable benefits like a comfortable environment with optimal air quality, better security and safety of premises etc.

Green teaches

How easy is it in practice to build and operate a green campus? Does it entail any challenges?

Not many, is the answer from Hexaware. If meticulously planned, the Green IT Campuses could be well set and maintained. But landscaping and scale can be an issue.

"For us at Hexaware, since we have extensive landscaping, maintaining the huge landscape will be a challenge." Chumble admits.

To make a building truly environmentally friendly thought needs to be made at the beginning of the process and the standards ought to be implemented during the development and construction of the facility.

As Symantec shares, there are things that can be added on afterwards and there are things that can be done to an existing building to make it more environmentally friendly, but LEED certification is very thorough and has quite high standards. "Therefore, a serious effort and commitment needs to be made for a facility to be LEED certified,” Sciabarrasi points out.

Commenting on sustainability as an issue, he discounts any major concerns emphasizing that the idea of a green campus is sustainable.

"Increasingly governments are also promoting green campuses in a big way to control global warming. Corporate India has also taken up this cause and is helping preserve natural resources. "

User awareness and ecosystem are important blocks in any green building. Meanwhile, aspects like eco-wise architects, their availability and costs, the price and availability of requisite building materials are also areas of concern.

Players like Honeywell Building Solutions (HBS) claim to be sufficiently capable of delivering the requisite expertise in India too.

Green excites

Hexaware has done an email campaign informing employees about the uniqueness of our Green Campus and creating awareness among them.

Back there in the US, the LEED tag is becoming increasingly familiar to consumers.

More than 1,500 buildings have received LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council since the program was introduced in 2000, and more than 11,000 are seeking the designation, according to the council, a nonprofit that administers the program.

And among others, tech security and storage firm Symantec (SYMC) got gold for its office campus in Culver City, near the L.A. coast. Symantec has another facility in China that is being built, again along LEED certifications. "By 2011, we hope to have all office buildings owned by Symantec to be LEED certified on a global basis." Sciabarrasi tells.

And so hopefully, more green headlines seem on their way.

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