Question

From your observation at your own residential area or your accommodation buildings, identify the current building features that need to be changed or to be constructed new in order to conform to Green Building Index. The features should include the following GBI criteria, i.e. Energy Efficiency (EE), Indoor Environment Quality (EQ), Sustainable Site Planning & MANAGEMENT (SM), Materials & Resources (MR), Water Efficiency (WE), Innovation (IN).

Answer 1

Green Building Index is the kind of quality being given to the building. It focuses on increasing the efficiency of resources use, water and different materials. Different points are being given to the buildings depending on their qualities regarding energy efficiency, Indoor environmental Quality, sustainable site planning, innovation, material & resources and water efficiency. These 6 criteria are essential for providing ratings in GBI rating system. After the ratings the buildings are divided into 4 parts depending upon their quality and ratings :

• Platinum = 85+
• Gold = 75-84
• Silver = 65-74
• Certified = 50-64

Below are the Criterias that are to be modified in the present building in our residential areas depending upon the present qualities

Energy Efficiency : It is the extent to which energy consumption is done per square feet or meter. The energy efficiency should be reduced as the consumption is very high and then it would be sustainable after reducing.

Water Efficiency : Water efficiency is the thing which should be increased as much as possible as there is always need of water in residential buildings. But the thing that needs to be observed is there should be minimum amount of wastage.

Innovation : As the building is old enough it needs proper innovation so that the outlook of the building is being improved. More innovative the building is more would be the grading index provided to it.

Indoor Environment Quality : The indoor environment should be also nice so that the people living are comfortable and as the building is getting old day by day it needs to be improved.

The other Criterias like site planning and management and the resources are sufficiently better and do not need much improvement and these are the things which do not get affected by virtue of time and all the other features need to be improved and due to that the Green Building Index rating of the building would be improved.