Sustainability in Buildings & Built Environment-A Comprehensive Approach

摘要

The indiscriminate use of natural resources since the development of civilization particularly their exploitation in the last one century or so in the process of industrialization and in the pursuit of comfort-at-all-cost, has resulted in a situation of almost no return. Under the circumstances, 'Sustainability' is the mantra and saviour of civilization. The most important aspect in achieving sustainability is to address the cardinal principles of sustainability namely,- reduce, reuse and recycle- with due consideration to sustainability objective with respect to space and time. The comprehensive approach demands that, with respect to space, the approach should start from a larger global context coming finally to the scale of a building or a locally built environment. Meaning thereby that an isolated building cannot be regarded as a sustainable product unless it is a part of an overall sustainability scenario in a larger context. Similarly, a time duration needs to be decided over which the sustainability is sought to be achieved. For example, what can be sustainable for a limited period of time may prove to be otherwise in a longer span of time. At the same time, sustainability cannot be seen for a period till eternity. This is particularly true because of cost implications and the likelihood of a paradigm shift in materials, technologies and developmental requirements during different times. Thus, sustainability needs to be largely concentrated on a scale of our planet and human life-scale of period such as 500 years. This paper discusses an approach to sustainability incorporated in the National Building Code of India, with a view to making appropriate decisions during conceptualization, planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance stages of the built facility.