Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) organised the second edition of Conference on Green Existing Buildings at The Lalit, Mumbai on May 21-22. It was supported by Cummins and Philips. The inaugural session was addressed by Gurmit Singh, Conference Chair and Chairman, Indian Plumbing Association (Mumbai Chapter); V. Suresh, Chair, IGBC Advocacy and Policy; Dr. P. C. Jain, National Chairman, IGBC; M. Anand, Principal Counsellor, CII-IGBC; and S. Raghupathy, Executive Director, IGBC. Gurmit Singh, while welcoming the delegates, mentioned that Mumbai has the distinction of having the first existing building to go green – Bombay House, the Tata Group headquarters. Dr. Prem C. Jain announced that the area of projects registered with IGBC has reached the milestone of 3 billion sq. ft. The target for August 15, 2022, when the country celebrates 75 years of independence, is 10 billion sq. ft., with India towering above all other countries as No. 1 in the world. S. Raghupathy highlighted the Vision of IGBC during the concluding remarks, and mentioned about GreenPro – a new initiative for

green product certification. The first session on Greening Existing Buildings – Opportunities was chaired by V. Suresh. It was addressed by M. Anand who spoke about Best Practices in Existing Green Buildings, and Mahesh Athalye (Associate Director – Crisil House) who talked about Owner Experience in Retrofitting. The next session was on Water Efficiency, chaired by B. R. Ajit, Chairman, IGBC Kochi Chapter. It was addressed by Neeta Sharma, MD, International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO) India; and Naveen Nawathe of Cera. The session on Sustainable Materials and Waste Management was chaired by Gurmit Singh, and  was addressed by S. Karthikeyan, Senior Counsellor, CII-IGBC; A. Ganesh, Director, Diversey India; and G. M. Prasad of Reddonatura. The last sessions on both days were earmarked for case studies. Mala Singh chaired the first day’s session. Case studies were presented by Rakesh Bhatia, VP – Ecofirst Services on Bombay House, Naresh Yadav of Ascendas IT Park on Ascendes, and Naresh Patil of Mahindra Group on Mahindra Towers. Energy Efficiency in Existing Buildings was the topic of the first session on the second day, chaired by Rumi Engineer, Business Head, Green Building Consultancy Services, Godrej & Boyce. The speakers were Michael Angre of Blue Star, Shreekant Phanse of Philips and Sagar Thorat of AEC, Autodesk. Architect Sandeep Shirke chaired the next session on Indoor Environmental Quality in Existing Buildings. Dimpy Daroch of Santrupti Engineers, Avinash Kulkarni – Chairman, Aeropure and N. E. Subramanian of Saint-Gobain Gyproc were the speakers. For facility managers, there was a session on Performance Monitoring and Innovative Finance Models chaired by M. Anand. V. V. S. Suryanarayana Raju of Infosys, Aditya Shankar of Honeywell Building Solutions and Sandhya Patil of Environmental Design Solutions were the speakers. An interactive panel discussion on Transforming Existing Buildings into Green, moderated by Gurmit Singh, had panellists from the industry and the government – Rajat Malhotra of Jones Lang Lasalle; Shrikant Bapat, MD of Johnson Controls; Rumi Engineer; Cdr. Surendra Kumar of Encon; and Dr. S. V. Pattiwar, Additional Municipal Commissioner, Navi Mumbai. The last session of the second day saw V. V. S. Suryanarayana Raju of Infosys and G. Ashwanth Kumar of L&T Realty presenting case studies from their respective companies. It was a well attended conference that will further the Green cause among the stakeholders.