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Environment and Climate Real Estate

Green Retail Coming to India

The Tatas, through their subsidiary Tata International is set to launch a series of retails stores that will comply with the USGBC LEED Rating.

The official press release:

is set to foray in Indian market its first set of Green stores, designed and planned on LEED pricipals and certification from USGBC. Designed by JGA, a Detroit based leading Retail design firm along with FRDC (Future Research Design Company), Bangalore, the stores will consume 40% less energy and will generate 15-20% power from Solar energy. All materials used in the store are made of high content of Recyclable material and everything will be procured from within 500 Km of radius of the store.

Store will demonstrate a high degree of local skills usage and crafts intervention and thus providing opportunities to local craftsmen and the Industry. All process and fabrication work of the store will be monitored by Green team constituted by the Architects and Associate team from FRDC Bangalore and Delhi. All waste generated during the construction shall be either reused in the store or shall be supplied to Recycle dealers.

However there is no indication of what kind of retail these shops will cater to. And what remains to be questioned is why use the USGBC rating when there is an IGBC rating system in place.

The strategies outlined tend towards mechanical solutions to issues. What remains to be seen is if there is a larger design solution to the sustainability strategy.

One reply on “Green Retail Coming to India”

The issue of sustainability & green designs gets relegated to the second spot because the first question about construction is the cost. Although most people are aware of environmental issues, still the percentage of people willing to try out new techniques are limited. Hence we use climatology & building orientation to a great extent to provide natural light & ventilation thus reducing dependency on mechanical means of controlling temperatures. In today’s recession, we do have clients who want to provide a gold-rated (LEEDS) buildings, however, market (tenants) is not in a position to support the higher rentals.  Hence, the need to incorporate green concepts that would only increase the cost by a small percentage.

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