As a concept the Green Building is still at a very Energy Simulator
GREEN
nascent stage. Though the amount of awareness IGBC has
able to create for the promotion of Green Building through
number of programs, workshops and training program,
BUILDING the objectives of Green Building and its benefits are still
not very clear in many minds.
CONSULTANCY
There are many myths surrounding the Green Building too,
like constructing one such is very costly, the certification
process is very tedious, the credits are next to impossible
and not practical etc. This all further discourages the
people to go ahead and build Green projects.
by This makes the tasks of the consultants and Green
promoters very difficult and hence the role of Green
Mr.Jayesh Viramani,
Consultant becomes very critical. The first question that
any consultant would face would be “What is the benefit
Godrej & Boyce that one would receive in constructing a Green Building?”
The initial task of the consultant would be clear all the
queries and myths of the clients and make them understand
the objective of the Green Buildings. The advantages and
the benefits of building a Green Building.
There are 3 main Consultancy services required for Green Building. Facilitator, Energy Simulator and Commissioning consultant.
We, at Godrej, can provide all the services to aspiring clients.
Facilitator
He would be the main guiding force in the team through the • Identifying vendors for the same.
entire journey of LEED certification. His main tasks besides of • Co-ordinate with all the design team and consultants
course to obtain the Green rating would include to facilitate and support/suggest them in various issues like selecting
the design team for: energy efficient and eco-friendly technologies based
on life cycle analysis, prepare drawings & documents
• Select materials/equipment to meet the LEED required to submit to IGBC for LEED rating, certain
requirements.
• He would be main Energy and Lighting consultant in
terms with suggesting various technologies and options
that can be implemented to optimize the energy use and
derive maximum efficiency levels.
• He can help in doing these before even a single brick is
actually laid i.e. before the actual construction begins.
• A simulating model can be made from the design
inputs that are available using various state-of-art
softwares available.
• On the basis of the same, various Energy Conservation
measures can be suggested to the client to reduce the
energy use and further optimize the system and all this
with life cycle analysis.
• The client can then opt for the measures with are cost-
effective and implement the same in the design stage itself.
• With Green Building point-of-view, the importance
of Energy consultant is significant as it demonstrates
percentage improvement in the proposed building
compared to the baseline building performance as per
ASHRAE / IESNA Standards.
• The more the percentage savings demonstrated Third-party Commissioning Consultant:
compared to base building more the number of credits
one achieves. There are maximum 10 credits (NC rating) • The Consultant desgns the building systems, the
one can obtain. contractor or the vendor installs the systems and “make
it run”, but who validates whether the systems operate
• It is infact mandatory to demonstrate minimum 14% as per the design specifications provided by the design
savings over the ASHRAE base building if one is aspiring consultant.
for IGBC/USGBC Core & Shell rating.
• Here the role of third-party commissioning becomes very
• Architectural Designs can also be modified to important. He is the one who would not only validate but
obtain maximum daylight but preventing the heat also make sure that the design parameters are achieved
at the same time. by the time building gets occupied.
• The importance Commissioning is well acknowledged by
the Green Building rating system and they have made
this as a mandatory requirement.
• This has given the boost and now many commercial
buildings having complex and inter-related systems opt
for commissioning as one of the main consultant. The
involvement from the design stage further fine tunes the
design and the testing requirements are known to the
vendors from the tendering stage.
• In a more textbook form, Commissioning is a enhanced
quality-assurance process of ensuring that a building’s
complex array of systems is designed, installed, tested,
and operated to perform according to the design intent
and the building owner’s operational needs.
Common Mistakes done by most of
the clients:
• Make a late decision in going for green. Sometimes the
design has already gone ahead before they decide to go
for green.
• The passion and drive demonstrated during design stages
tends to dilute and waver down during execution stages.

What are the benefits of Commissioning?
• Bridges the gap between concept and reality. A well
commissioned building saves 8 to 10 % of energy
compared to a non-commissioned building.
• Rectifying the shortcomings / faults at early phase.
• Review in a timely manner for commissionable and
maintainability, design, fabrication and installation
drawings and documents and check for adequacy,
accuracy, easy of use and adherence to Clients
requirements.
• Proper documentation of commissioning plan and
incorporating the commissioning requirements in the
Tender documents prevents any hassles during the
construction stage.
• Documenting Testing and Commissioning scripts of all
equipments which includes Methodology of testing and
commissioning, Prerequisites for Pre-commissioning
and Commissioning and Formats for documenting
the results obtained.
• Detailed planning of commissioning activity including
scheduling and documenting the milestone.
• Prepare and issue the building services design handover
document for the engineering systems.
• Maintaining of master engineering defect list and follow
up with the contractors to ensure timely closure of the
same.
• Improved documentation of various MEP systems
manuals (mainly HVAC, Electrical & BMS systems) and
thus helping the facility during maintenance & failure
scenarios.
• Perform detailed failure analysis during design stage to
ensure system sustainability as per client’s requirement.
• Training the facility on best practices (operational
techniques) of various systems.
• Participate in post completion review of project to
enable future improvements to design, procurement and
administration .
• During the post occupancy phase a commissioning
agent works closely with the facility team and helps to
refine the bench mark (base line) of energy and water
consumption (provided by the energy simulator) after
studying the actual load pattern/conditions.
• We (Godrej) have commissioned systems right from
transformers, DGs, Electrical systems, complete HVAC
systems, complex and emergency systems like UPS,
integrated BMS & security systems.
How much time does Commissioning take?
• The belief that Third Party commissioning would drag the
project schedule is only a myth. In fact the commissioning
process starts from the construction stage and can
occur as and when the vendor’s systems are ready
to commission. It can occur simultaneously when the
vendor is fine tuning the system.
• It does not have any impact on occupancy schedule or
incur any additional cost.
What are the Costs involved in
constructing a Green Building?
• Over the years, the incremental cost of turning your
building into to a green building had reduced drastically.
For the construction of the first 5 Green Building the
percentage incremental cost went as high as 20%. This
was due to insufficient resources and materials available
locally, general awareness was at very nascent stage and
the knowledgeable manpower was limited both in terms
of consultants and vendors.
• Now the incremental cost has reduced to as low as 2 or
3 % depending upon the size of the building and also to
certain extent the existing construction benchmark with
one is comparing to. In some of our current projects
opting for Silver or Gold rating, the incremental cost is
almost “Zero”.
• Green Building movement has developed the market
in a big way and most of the materials are available
locally. Many have viewed this as need of hour or a
business opportunity and have even opened factories to
manufacture materials at more than one place like glass,
water fixtures, paints etc.
The additional costs involved in making the Building Green
are listed below:
• Registration Charges.
• Certification Fee.
• Appeal of review credits (if any)
• Green Building Consultants charges