A 25 acre campus in Greater Noida with a seating capacity for 12,000 is on its way at NIIT Technologies.

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 mn sq ft.

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 a 3,000 seating capacity, henceforth expanding capacity in blocks. For Hexaware, the first phase will cover a 750,000 sq ft built up area and will house around 5,000 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 thats 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
Buildings account for a significant portion of Indias energy consumption at nearly 30%. Addressing responsible energy efficiency and environmental impact is a significant step toward 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.

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 explaining the motive behind its green campus coming up in Siruseri in Chennai.

Symantec has also gone the green way 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. With that in mind, we felt it was important from the very beginning to keep in mind green aspects of the building and make the building as environmentally responsible as possible. 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. Its the first LEED certified building in Culver City, CA. shares Luigi Sciabarrasi, vice president, real estate and facilities, Symantec.

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 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 Build stage. Operate will come later but the design has to be put in place. Disposal is what comes last, he shares.

The scope of green IT is distributed. 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 look 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. Theres a lot of care to be taken at the disposal end too.

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

Its more of a profit cause rather than a cost one. We can reduce expenses in the long-term, and thats clearly tied down to our profits Satish Syal, CIO, NIIT	We wanted to provide our employees a state-of-the-art green campus Deependra L Chumble, chief people officer, Hexaware Technologies

Green Enthralls
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. NIITs 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 Symantecs campus, native foliage has been used outside of the building to cut down on water usage.

In one of the earlier examples, an HPs campus in India sprawling across a 23-acre facility, as per some earlier reports comprised 70% greenery with the concrete structures that house employees taking up only 30% of the area. HP 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 Hexawares new campus, energy conservation methods will be deployed and 100% 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 NIITs upcoming campus, apart from rainwater harvesting, wastewater shall also be treated and reused for air-conditioning and irrigation.

Another important part of such buildings is the significance of solar energy and appropriate lighting systems. Taking Symantecs Culver City project as an example shows that the buildings exo-skeleton is completely made of glass so that 90% of employees have access to sunlight. The glass has a film on it, which blocks out 70% of UV rays to let daylight in but keep the heat out. The buildings 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 NIITs new campus and provision for natural daylight has been kept by providing open central courtyards. Syal claims that there would be use of over deck insulation to cut off solar heat through ceiling. We also plan to use double glazed units with high efficiency reflective glass to reduce the solar heat gain by 8-10%. There would be use of environment-friendly, high efficiency water-cooled centrifugal chillers to reduce the electricity bill at NIIT.

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

NIITs new campus illustrates many other ideas and initiatives. Use of VAVs 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 withVFDs to reduce the energy bill for fresh air supply in the conditioned space, use of solar water heating system for cafeteria block, use of energy efficient lighting fixtures with electronic ballast with T-5 lamps, use of lux sensors, occupancy sensors, and dimmers for internal and external lighting, and use of high efficiency class eff1 electrical motors add to this list.

Apart from these there are also plans of energy efficiency cooling towers for AC and DG operations, energy efficient gearless elevators, and use of building material made of recycle material to reduce the land fill load to cut pollution, adds Syal.

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

NIITs Syal answers in the affirmative. Its more of a profit cause rather than a cost one. We can reduce expenses in the long-term, and thats clearly tied down to our profits. Though capital costs are high on the onset but with government incentives much can be achieved. Green has to make economic sense, says Syal without mincing any words. A lot would depend on availability on conducive equipment in the market, as well as the procurement prices. Government incentives can make a lot of difference here, Syal argues citing duty drawbacks for hybrid cars as a case in point.

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, Why not? The issue right now is the lack of well-defined norms on carbon credits. One has to sit down and calculate. But we can be prepared and leverage on it when the time comes.

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 LEED, is designed to be high-energy saving which would result in around 25-30% energy savings.

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.

As a proof of the pudding, HBS cites that its intelligent building management systems have globally saved nearly $2 bn in energy costs and $1.2 bn 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 (as intelligent systems come with fire and security management systems integrated with environmental control systems), lower operational and energy expenses, data transparencyfor informed decision-making (especially in energy saving strategies), 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, 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 says.

To make a building truly environmentally friendly 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. In a perfect world, in order for a building to be LEED certified, its better to bear those standards in mind from the very beginning of the development of a facility, rather than adding features on afterwards to an existing facility. Features can be added afterwards, but no corners can be cut in terms of how thorough the features must be to attain LEED certification. Sciabarrasi points out.

User awareness and ecosystems 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.

The LEED rating system rates buildings on key parameters that affect energy and the environment, and calculates points achieved (on a scale of 0 to 69) thereby rating buildings as certified (26-32 points), silver (33-38 points), gold (39-51 points), and platinum (52+ points). HBS portfolio of intelligent building management systems and services helps builders and end users to get nearly 29 points, and thats 40% of the total. This means that just by putting in an intelligent building management solution, your facility qualifies as certified, says Godbole.

Be it planning (the management); design (architects/developers), consultants/certification bodies (like the LEED), or the end-users, every piece has a significant role to play in the success of such projects, advises Symantecs Sciabarrasi. Based on our experience in Culver City, its a partnership of all three from the developmental stages of the facility between management, architects, and representatives from the certification bodies.

Green Excites
Hexaware has done an email campaign informing employees about the uniqueness of their 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 US Green Building Council since the program was introduced in 2000, and more than 11,000 are seeking the designation, according to the council. And among others, tech security and storage firm Symantec (SYMC) got gold for its office campus in Culver City, near the LA 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.

Talking about plans for India, he adds, We are indeed examining our options to have our facilities in India LEED certified, but no timeline or specifics have been developed yet.

And so hopefully, more green headlines will make their way.

Pratima Harigunani
maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in

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