First Indian Company to Achieve EDGE Green Building Certification

June 9, 2014 - IFC has awarded EDGE (“Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies”) green building certification to apartment buildings to be constructed by Value and Budget Housing Corp. Ltd. (VBHC) of India. This is the first company to achieve the certification for apartment buildings in India, a country where rapid urbanization has created a severe shortage of housing.

IFC’s EDGE is a new green building certification system created for emerging markets. It provides clients with technical solutions for going green and captures capital costs and projected operational savings, in order to prove the business case for building green.

Given that buildings account for over a quarter of all man-made carbon dioxide emissions, investments in green buildings are one of the most important ways to fight climate change, especially in India where demand for housing and commercial real estate is booming. Government agencies estimate India’s housing shortage is close to 18 million units, and the gap between supply and demand has grown more than 7 percent annually for the last four years.

To qualify for EDGE certification, companies must utilize the EDGE software to prove their building design will reduce energy, water, and embodied energy in building materials by at least 20 percent compared with local benchmarks.
 

VBHC achieved the EDGE standard for design for apartment blocks in Vaibhava Bangalore. VBHC's resource-efficient design—which includes such improvements as solar hot water collectors, energy-efficient lighting and ceiling fans, and low-flow faucets—is projected to achieve reductions of up to 33 percent in energy, 39 percent in water, and 23 percent in materials’ embodied energy compared to local benchmarks.
VBHC specializes in construction of affordable homes targeting first-time home-buyers. In 2013, IFC invested $14 million worth of equity in VBHC to promote greater access to affordable housing across several states in India.
 

Business Contacts:

Olaf Schmidt, oschmidt@ifc.org
Jane Jenkinson, jjenkinson@ifc.org

Media Contact:

Elizabeth Price, eprice@ifc.org