A visit to CII’s Green Business Centre site is heartening because of the India rootedness of its approach. It talks of fly ash use, use of recycled materials like steel, wood, tiles, glass and sanitary ware, oil free, CFC free equipment, variable speed motors for blowers, pumps, elaborate use of sensors feeding back to controls and so on. There is a sensitivity that goes beyond just green buildings. There are a lot of downloadable ‘how-to’ documents on improving energy efficiencies in specific industries.

From GoodNewsIndia’s point of view, the implications are two-fold. For one, it is an unavoidable axiom that a race for industrialisation will severely damage the environment first before reaction sets in and correction begins. The CII initiative suggests that the low inflexion point may have been passed. With awareness among captains of industry, there is the prospect of India escaping the horrors that the West went through before it recovered.

For another, the poor always imitate the rich. If one sees splendid old houses pulled down everywhere to be replaced by boxy, concrete horrors, it is because the nouveau riche believe that that is the lifestyle of the rich. Now, if architects like Grover start to convert the wealthy and make them aware of environmental issues, the poor will return one day to esteem their time-tested ways of life that were nature friendly.

The award for the Grover building is significant from these points of view.