Infosys awarded highest LEED ratings for its Mangalore and Mysore buildings

MANGALORE & MYSORE, INDIA: Infosys has been awarded the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) India ‘Platinum' rating by the Indian Green Building Council for its Software Development Block (SDB) 3 in Mangalore and SDB 6 in Mysore, India.

With this, Infosys now has a total of seven buildings that have garnered the prestigious Platinum rating, the highest ranking given by LEED for sustainable building design.

The LEED Green Building Rating System is a globally accepted benchmark for design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings. Platinum-certified buildings at Infosys now cover more than 1.5 million square feet of space.

Both buildings are located in the Special Economic Zone of the Infosys campuses in these cities. Infosys constructed these buildings with a holistic approach to sustainability, concentrating on areas such as water efficiency and harvesting, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality.

Key features of SDB 3 Mangalore include:

· Water efficiency: Waste of storm water through run-off has been reduced by 67 percent in the building due to a dedicated rain water harvesting pool.

· Energy efficiency:76 percent of regularly occupied spaces in the building have a minimum daylight factor of 2 percent, reducing dependency on artificial lighting. The Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration (HVAC & R) systems installed in this building are free from Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) - based refrigerants.

· Green Power:50 percent of the energy consumed is green power procured from the state utility provider.

· Indoor environment quality: The fresh air provided in this building is 30 percent greater than global American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) standards.

· Efficient disposal of construction waste: Over 98 percent of the construction waste from the building was effectively diverted from landfills thereby reducing environmental pollution and wastage of resources.

Key features of SDB 6 Mysore include:

· Water efficiency: This building uses 46 percent less water than the water use baseline requirements, due to efficient plumbing fixtures and recycled waste water.

· Energy efficiency: An efficient building envelope, energy-efficient lighting and HVAC systems help this building exceed the global ASHRAE standards by 39 percent.

· Green power: 50 percent of the building's electricity comes from off-site renewable sources.

· Indoor environment quality: The fresh air provided in this building is 30 percent greater than global ASHRAE standards.

· Efficient use of material and resources: Recycled materials account for more than17 percent of the building construction materials. More than 50 percent of the total construction materials were manufactured regionally, reducing pollution from long-haul transport.

Ramadas Kamath, Senior Vice President, Infosys said "Humanity today consumes the Earth's resources at 1.5 times the rate that nature can replace them. Therefore ,it is critical for ecosystems across the world to ensure checks that will help economize natural resources and reduce our environmental footprint. At Infosys, we have always been conscious of our responsibility to drive efforts that reduce our consumption of resources. We have implemented various sustainability initiatives aimed at achieving carbon and water neutrality across our campuses. This award is an acknowledgement of our focus and commitment towards sustainable business practices. Infosys is proud to be recognized for our sustainability efforts across our operations in India. We hope our efforts will inspire the larger ecosystem to adopt similar measures."