GreenSpaces

Posts Tagged ‘energy’

Water managment

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Water Management at Paharpur Business Centre

We measure our water consumption on a daily basis – water meters are installed at all points of consumption at Paharpur Business Centre.

At Paharpur Business Centre we have installed all water efficient fixtures i.e. waterless urinals, sensor taps, dual flush cistern based water closets.

We use drip irrigation for watering the plants.

Reject water from the RO plant is used to water the indoor plants.

As part of our 4R policy – Reduce, Re-use, Re-cycle & Re-charge – we also harvest water and recharge it into the ground.

Dishwasher is used to clean all the dishes in our cafeteria and the first rinse water that is without the detergents is re-used by diverting it to our vermi-compost pit.

Housekeeping Practices

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Housekeeping Best Practices at Paharpur Business Centre

At Paharpur Business Centre, we have placed hand sanitizers at all strategic locations in our building i.e. at the reception, security desk, lobbies, cafeteria, toilets / wash rooms etc – to check the spread of communicable diseases i.e. H1N1 Flu.

Visitors / Guests entering the building are requested to wash their hands with soap and water or use hand sanitizers placed at the Front office & security desks.

We sanitize the doors, handles, knobs, elevator buttons; telephones etc are wiped with alcohol-based sanitizers on a daily basis.

All housekeeping chemicals used in the building are “Green Seal” certified & the crew wears hand gloves while cleaning the rest rooms / wash rooms.

Tight vacuuming of the carpet and upholstery is carried out on daily basis. The dust collected is measured and monitored.

Use of touch free taps and soap dispensers. (Touch free towel dispensers being planned in future).

Tight vacuuming of the carpet and upholstery is carried out on daily basis. The dust collected is measured and monitored.

The carpet tiles placed in all the guest and conference rooms are CRI Green label plus and are shampooed on weekly basis or as required.

The outdoor mats are kept moist for increased dust removing efficiency.

30 feet entryway system (doormat) from 3M Company, removes most of the dust from shoes at the building entrance.

Pest control is carried out twice a week with eco-friendly chemicals after office hours.

Housekeeping supervisor ensures that there are no unauthorized people in the premises when the pest control is being carried out.

All incoming parcels and courier packets are received outside the building and brought inside after cleaning.

Extensive regular training is imparted to the housekeeping Crewmembers with special emphasis on hygiene, health & safety.

We also have sustainable purchasing systems and as a result all the machines that we have in our housekeeping department are energy efficient i.e.  CRI certified vacuum cleaners and are star rated wherever possible.

Economic Times- Tackle climate change now: Scientists

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

Tackle climate change now: Scientists

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New Delhi, 7 July 2009

As leaders of the world’s 13 major countries prepare to meet at the G8+5 summit in Italy this week, 24 leading scientists from these countries have appealed to them to take immediate action to combat climate change.

“We come together to call on our government leaders to recognise both the unacceptable risks that climate change creates for our societies, and the unprecedented opportunities a clean energy, low-carbon transition creates for our economies,” the scientists said in a joint appeal.

The appeal appeared as an advertisement in the International Herald Tribune newspaper Tuesday. The scientists asked the leaders of the industrialised eight and developing five countries to take five specific steps at their summit this week:

  • Recognise that present global warming of 0.8 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels is already having a significant impact, and that warming exceeding 2 degrees Celsius predicted for later this century would create great risks and have irreversible consequences.
  • Commit to peak global greenhouse gas emissions by no later than 2020 and reduce these by at least 50 percent relative to 1990 levels by 2050.
  • For developed countries, commit to emissions reductions of at least 80 percent relative to 1990 by 2050 with appropriate intermediate targets set in time for Copenhagen (the next climate summit scheduled this December).
  • For developing countries, commit by Copenhagen summit to significant gains in energy efficiency, reductions in carbon intensity, and cuts in non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions over the next two decades; this should be designed to support sustainable development and to lead to substantial reduction from business-as-usual emissions.
  • Recognise that the impacts of existing changes in climate are primarily due to past emissions by developed nations, and that unless the burden of poverty in developing nations is alleviated by significant financial support for mitigation, adaptation, and the reduction of deforestation, that ability of developing countries to pursue sustainable development is likely to diminish, to the economic and environmental detriment of all.

Read the full article here

Financial Express- New govt buildings must be sustainable

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

New govt buildings must be sustainablefinancialexpress

Kamal Meattle, June 4, 2009

The Indian construction sector is growing rapidly at 13%, despite the recession and slowdown in the global economy, contributing 10% of India’s GDP.

Kamal Meattle, CEO, Paharpur Business CentreThe need of the hour is to look at clean and environment friendly construction technologies and this must set the tone of the agenda for the new government. The government must ensure that all new construction, at least all government buildings in the country, is green, and effectively demonstrates the benefits to the private sector.

In the past few years, the concept of green buildings has caught the imagination of the real estate sector. It has been proven over time how a green building can help in reducing operational expenditure by a marginal increase in CAPEX, thereby shoring up the financial bottom line.

The reason why developers do not invest in green buildings is because they don’t run the building and are not aware about the savings in running costs. The buyers of such buildings need to be made aware of this fact and be informed so that they demand buildings with lower running costs from developers.

The slowdown also poses a great opportunity for the construction and real estate sectors in terms of reducing chances of cost overruns and hence it’s attractive to build green now.

Learn How to Grow Your Own Fresh Air at TED 2009

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

Details here.

ted_2009_growfreshair