Jitendra Singh calls for promoting startups in carbon neutral building construction
Jul 03, 2022
New Delhi [India], July 3 : Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh on Saturday called for promoting startups in "carbon neutral" building construction and linking them with industry to help India achieve 500GW non-fossil energy capacity by 2030.
Speaking at an event, Singh urged real estate developers, builders, industry, and academia to find innovative, affordable solutions that adapt to India's climatic zones and unique needs, address extreme weather events, and reduce risk to lives and property.
Recognizing that startups in net-zero carbon emission have started emerging fast in the Indian landscape, the Minister promised all financial support from the Centre and at the same time urged businesses to come forward with open arms to adopt such ventures.
He said, apart from clean and green buildings, emphasis on clean transportation, solar water pumps and solar-powered refrigeration, clean grid power and electric vehicles are some of the important areas for India's cleantech ecosystem.
Singh said India has laid out an ambitious plan to address climate change, one of the biggest challenges facing the global community. He said, at the recent COP26 meeting held in Glasgow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi presented the Panchamrit plan, India's five-point climate action agenda. They include 500GW by 2030, 50 per cent of its energy requirements from renewable energy by 2030, reduction of total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes from now to 2030, reduction of the carbon intensity of the economy by 45 per cent by 2030, over 2005 levels and achieving the target of net zero emissions by 2070.
The Union Minister said the Department of Science and Technology is also playing an active role in the Mission Innovation program and has opened avenues for collaborative research in clean energy with 25 countries.
He said globally, the construction and operation of buildings account for 38 per cent of the total energy-related CO2 emissions that cause global warming. He said, India is experiencing a building boom, and almost 70 per cent of the floor area that India will have in 2050 is going to be new construction in the next 28 years.
This presents a huge opportunity to make 70 per cent of India's buildings net-zero by leveraging new technologies and encouraging the use of local, sustainable building materials, the Minister added.
Singh informed that developing net-zero energy and net-zero water buildings is not easy and there is a need to bring together real estate developers, builders, industry, and academia to find innovative, affordable solutions that adapt to India's climatic zones and unique needs and address resiliency.
The Minister also emphasised that we need to foster innovation in our students and future entrepreneurs and encourage our architecture and engineering institutions to adapt their curriculum and training to address these challenges.
