AIT Presents His Excellency Dr a P J Abdul Kalam, Hon'Ble Former President of India

Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam www.abdulkalam.com

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Address at the GreenCo Summit 2013 of Confederation of Indian Industry

at Suzlon Excellence Academy, Pune 15th July 2013

Sustainable System for Nation’s Development

Vision of the humanity is the

Liveable Planet Earth

I am delighted to participate in the GreenCo Summit 2013 with

the Theme: “How to Green your company?” Organised by the

Confederation of Indian Industry at the Suzlon Excellence Academy,

Pune. My greetings to the Industry representatives, Green

ambassadors, distinguished guests, special invitees and the leaders

of the Green initiatives launched through the GreenCo Rating system,

which rates the companies on their environmental friendliness and

suggest the way forward. It is also interesting to note that companies

are taking steps for environmental friendliness in their various

activities. My greetings to all of you for making this noble cause of

green profile for the country. When I am with this gathering let me

share some of my thoughts on the title Sustainable System for

Nation’s Development.

What is a company or an industry? It is indeed a miniature

abode of human life. It needs life supporting systems, like water,

clean air, conditioned environment, waste management, electricity to

power the systems and above all three dimensional human beings as

actuators of the companies and buildings to house all the companies

activities. 21st century companies will have unique challenges of

maximising the output, human resources and machinery with

minimum clean water availability and with minimum clean air and


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maximum fossil fuel driven electricity. That calls for visionary

decisions for solar and wind powered company and generation of

water bodies inside the company, so that during the rainy season

water will be collected and processed and for some use water can be

recycled and above all using fifth energy source, that is efficiently

using electric power with minimum transmission loss.

Development and Environment

Friends, the urgent need of today’s world are the empowerment

of the rural and underprivileged population of the world. This

represents almost half of humanity – a Target of 3 Billion. But we

need to be careful about how the 21st century development impacts

the environment and how we utilize the limited resources available to

humanity. Efficiency of the process of current of methods inclusion is

starkly low and grossly expensive for the environment. The current

economy of excess comes at a huge cost on the environment. In

1990s, The Biosphere 2 experiment was conducted to determine how

much resource an average human being requires at our current

consumption patterns. Some startling revelations followed. It

indicated that an average Briton would require close to 5 Hectare, or

roughly six football fields to provide at the current consumption levels

and to absorb the subsequent waste generated. An average, North

American would require twice that amount of land, about 10

Hectares. India of course, has far lesser burden, but it is going only

upwards with time. Earth, howsoever large, is limited. Even if all the

cultivable land was allotted to human beings, the average size per

person would work to about 1.67 Hectares only. If every human being

starts living like a North American today, do you know how many

planet earths we will need? We would need 6 planet earths to suffice


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our consumption. Current models are not only ineffective but also

perilously expensive on the environment and simply too cumbersome

of the land resources available to us. As industrialists, scientists,

technologists and humanists, all of you would thus have to focus on

sustainable development in new innovative ways – which would

require focus on waste management, land management, water

conservation, recycling and bringing different disciplines of science

together to realize a more eco-friendly sustainable development

system. Fortunately, the GreenCo Summit 2013 addresses one part of

the sustainable development. It is indeed a good beginning.

In this GreeCo Summit 2013, I would like to discuss three

aspects on which I have done some work which I would like to

share. One is energy consumption targets another is fifth fuel and

the third one is solar powered houses for India.

Energy consumption: Targets

One of our experts says that for a normally constructed

building, the present energy consumption in India is 300 kwh per m

sq annually which can be brought down to 140 kwh per m sq

annually by proper designs/details/philosophy, whereas in Germany

with its strict energy codes it is reported that the consumption is only

50 kwh per m sq annually. It is all the more important for India to

achieve at least a target of 100 KWh per m sq annually within the

next 5 years. This will need coordinated effort between architects,

builders and the energy engineers, a newly developed expertise.

The architects and building planners have to play a very

important role in the design of the building with these features. The

seeds of this perspective have to be sown in the schools of


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architecture and town planning. Energy conservation should start

right from the location of the site, the direction of buildings, windows,

doors, glare etc., the aim should be to use maximum advantage of the

sun and wind, while minimizing the wasteful heat load from sun into

the buildings and roofs.

Intelligent buildings and corporate

Buildings use of 50% of global energy and account for

comparable of heat trapping emissions. Integrated design with

multiple energy efficiency measures can reduce energy use at least

half of the conventional building and gains of greater than 80% have

been achieved. The emerging trends of intelligent buildings and green

buildings entail the use of modern technology, smart materials and

eco friendly designs. For example, I have seen the hollow building

material made out of fly ash, not only is more environment friendly,

but also a better insulator of heat and cold. Such eco-friendly, cost-

effective material can make the building more energy efficient.

The building environment and comfort conditions of intelligent

buildings could be monitored and altered to suit specific

requirements using new processing tools like neural networks and

fuzzy logic. The future holds a lot of promise as new concepts in

nano-technology; smart materials and design software will open fresh

avenues and unleash an era of efficient and sustainable buildings.

The new edge green enterprises will give birth of new cadre of jobs -

green corridor jobs. These jobs will be around business which either

supply a green power or green power generating equipment.


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Embodied Energy

The construction sector plays a significant role in economic

development of the country. Activities in the construction sector are

complex, highly dispersed and resource demanding. The activities of

the sector result in the loss of important natural assets and impose

severe stress on the environment. Agricultural land is often lost

through urbanization and extraction of raw materials. The

consumption of fossil fuels contributes to increased air pollution and

emissions of greenhouse gases. Energy is required for manufacturing

materials, for transport and for construction of buildings. Apart from

this initial energy use, there is also need for energy for functioning of

buildings. In the developed countries there is a growing demand for

an environmental impact assessment of all building projects, which

includes considerations of embodied energy i.e. the energy that is

consumed in extraction of raw materials and production of finished

building materials.

However, construction is crucial to the prosperity and

civilization of human beings. People require habitats, schools, work

places, markets, places for sports and cultural activities. Our task

therefore is to have more and better construction for our billion

people, but minimize per capita energy consumption in the whole

chain by value addition in construction and maintenance. There is a

need to reduce the embodied energy especially in respect of office

buildings, hospitals and hotels by at least 10% of the present

embodied energy consumed which is in the region of five thousand

kilo watt hour per square meter.


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I am happy that a good beginning has been made due to the

enactment of the Energy Conservation Act 2001, Bureau of Energy

Efficiency has been formed which has initiated the task of developing

Energy Conservation Building Codes.

Human society and energy

Friends, traditionally, the human society has seen through four

levels of fuels. The first fuel is Wood which began with the discovery

of fire some 1 million years ago. The second fuel is oil and particularly

petroleum products which is as new as the late 19th century, only

about 100 years old. The third fuel is nuclear which is barely 50

years old. Now the fourth fuel is being termed as the Green Sources

like Solar and Wind which are becoming commercially viable and

technologically feasible within the last two decades.

Now, we are already talking of the fifth fuel – which is not a

hardware fuel in the conventional sense. It is Energy Efficiency.

Various reports suggest that Building Energy Efficiency is perhaps

the most economically feasible, and convenient way to “generate”

energy by actually saving it. More than any form of technology, what

it needs is the social awareness and incentives for the industries and

homes to go green. Moreover, in India, like most developing nations,

there is a great scope for this fifth source of energy. For instance, in

distribution of the power alone, the losses are over 40% in many

states, there is also an immense scope for energy efficiency at

household levels ranging from cooking fuels to smart buildings which

can save up to 50% of the energy consumption.


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My suggestion for Solar power panelled houses

Friends, recently I addressed the Economist Conference on

Perspectives on India’s energy future. There I made a suggestion for

India’s energy future through a household level Solar power paneled

houses and Street lights.

India has approximately 200 million houses out of which

60 million houses do not have access to electricity. My suggestion is,

necessity of a national policy to provide grid independent distributed

generation solar panel houses to these dwellings first which can be

extended to other 140 million houses gradually. Also the street lights

can be provided on community based solar panels in villages, towns

and cities. This will bring to India a vibrant solar panel industry right

from innovative development, efficiency enhancement, production,

distribution, marketing and maintenance of trouble free solar energy

system as a business. This will also generate a large number of

employment opportunities for the youth.

This integrated business solution will bring down the cost of

solar power generation and also distribution loss. The action of

creating solar paneled houses and street lights will release nearly

50,000 – 60,000 MW of power for use by various sectors of the

economy propelling the national growth. It will also be useful for

providing low cost electricity to other developing nations in the world.

Industries and companies have to first opt solar power and normal

grid supply for other power needs.


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Transforming Green building to sustainable design buildings

Green buildings, sustainable design buildings and green

architecture are the hall mark of bringing sustainable clean green

environment in construction and infrastructure development. Green

building refers to a structure and using process that is

environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a

building's life-cycle: from siting to design, construction, operation,

maintenance, renovation, and demolition. The Green Building

practice expands and complements the classical building design

concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort. Although new

technologies are constantly being developed to complement current

practices in creating greener structures, the common objective is that

green buildings are designed to reduce the overall impact of the built

environment on human health and the natural environment by:

• Efficiently using energy, water, and other resources

• Protecting occupant health and improving employee productivity

• Reducing waste, pollution and environmental degradation

While the practices or technologies employed in green building are

constantly evolving and may differ from region to region, fundamental

principles persist from which the method is derived: Siting and

Structure Design Efficiency, Energy Efficiency, Water

Efficiency,Materials Efficiency, Indoor Environmental Quality

Enhancement, Operations and Maintenance Optimization, and Waste

and Toxics Reduction. The essence of green building is an

optimization of one or more of these principles. Also, with the proper

synergistic design, individual green building technologies may work

together to produce a greater cumulative effect.


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Sustainable design is the philosophy of designing physical

objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the

principles of social, economic, and ecological sustainability. The

intention of sustainable design is to "eliminate negative

environmental impact completely through skillful, sensitive design".

Manifestations of sustainable design require no non-renewable

resources, impact the environment minimally, and connect people

with the natural environment.

Beyond the elimination of negative environmental impact,

sustainable design must create projects that are meaningful

innovations that can shift behaviour. A dynamic balance between

economy and society, intended to generate long-term relationships

between user and object/service and finally to be respectful and

mindful of the environmental and social differences.

Suggestions: Energy Conservation Implementation Strategies

Energy is a vital input for industry. Enterprise wise energy

conservation is an important wealth generator for every industry. For

ensuring competitiveness per capita energy utilization is an important

index. Keeping this in mind, I would request the experts assembled

here to address the following issues relating to practical energy

conservation implementation strategies:

(a) Evolving energy utilization norms for different industry such

as cement, aluminum, steel, fertilisers and textile etc on per

capita basis and provide a challenge to designers to work

towards the target.


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(b) Creating an enterprise wise review within each of the above

sectors, mechanism to reveal the variance from planned

utilization to the actual. As far as possible try to allocate the

responsibility for this variance and take immediate corrective

action.

(c) Creating an idea bank in which employees can provide

innovative solutions for energy efficient operations. There

must be a system of analysis of ideas for implementing

practical ideas on the shop floor and suitable reward.

(d) It is essential to install progressively, the energy efficient nano

lamps, energy efficient heating and AC system in the

enterprise. For example, nearly seventy five million

households in the rural sector today do not have electrical

connection. It would be a great saver of electricity if we can

install nano crystal based LED lamps in all these rural

houses.

(e) A mission mode programme can be created for energy

conservation. We have to set yearly target of saving twenty

five billion units of electrical power per year from the present

3.2 billion units, so that we can wipe out the existing

shortage within the next four years.

Research areas

Combating the generation, handling, transportation and

disposal of e-waste has become a subject of paramount importance to

the nation today. For building adequate capacity of modern cost

effective disposal systems will need continuous research by the


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recyclers, electronic systems manufacturing and user groups as a

whole. The research areas include are:

a) Design for environment.

b) Design for longer life

c) Modularity to enable replacement of specific parts

d) Recycling processes and systems

e) Eco labeling

f) Dis-assembly

g) Greening supply chains

h) Life cycle assessment

i) Bio-inspired material

These tasks can be taken by a central agency created for this

purpose by the electronic manufacturers and ICT companies of India

and abroad with notional funding based on their turn over. The

government on its part must provide incentives for such research

missions.

Conclusion : Livable Planet Earth

On 02 Nov 2012, while addressing the Beijing Forum at China, I

proposed the thought how important is a Liveable Planet Earth. The

humanity needs a great vision to forget all the conflicts and move

towards a common goal of peace and prosperity for all the global

citizens. We visualize the birth of world vision leading to "Livable

Planet earth". This vision will be greater than any other vision so far

envisioned by the humanity.


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I think there cannot be a greater vision for the nations than

transforming our "Planet earth livable". That means, are we leaving a

sustainable world where we have taken less from nature. Today,

technology has made the world borderless and an individual or

organization or a nation can contribute in their own unique ways to

the vision ‘Livable Planet earth’ even as they work towards their

excellence. Now as a part of the greening organization programmes,

when you initiate recycling, waste management, energy efficiency,

design without pollution, paperless office, efficient archival of records,

environment harnessing, optimizing employee commutation and

travel, effective use of natural light and ventilation, sustainability

education or other relevant activity, you are contributing to this world

vision. They will call for leadership vision, attitudinal changes, science

and technology and above all a sense of pride to the contribution to

society at large. Hence, while creating wealth in the classical sense we

need to find new opportunities to serve the society in ways hitherto

not imagined. And they have impact on wealth and knowledge

generation in tangible and intangible ways.

Friends, large organisations are a small part of the

community itself. When you go through public sector or private sector

establishments, one thing strikes clearly; there are two types of

infrastructure adjacent to each other. While organisations improve

their productivity, competitiveness, employee welfare, they may also

enable improvement of infrastructure and surroundings of their

neighbourhood. The educational institutions, students, teachers

attached to the organisations and the employees – serving as well as

experienced persons may be enabled to embark on programmes with

organisations like CII on sustainability education and infrastructure


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improvement. With the expertise of organisations on integrated

development, such projects can be handled efficiently.

My best wishes to all the participants of the GreenCo Summit

2013 for success in their mission of promoting “How to Green your

company?”

May God bless you.

Documents

AIT Presents His Excellency Dr a P J Abdul Kalam, Hon'Ble Former President of India