Status Review of Efficiency in the Urban Built Environment

This project has now been concluded.

This project is the outcome of a review exercise funded by the Climate Works Foundation during 2014 to map a range 27 national policies that impact urban built environment covering themes of Land, Energy, Water and Transport and review existing linkages and integration in approach.

The urban building sector (and infrastructure) is one of the major consumers of energy in Indian cities. The smallest unit of the built environment is the individual building, which links up to other buildings and urban services – such as transport, water supply and treatment, etc. Before zooming out to a city level, groups of buildings form communities and neighborhoods.  A building is typically constructed by an individual entity, and ownership rests with a single or multiple numbers of owners. In essence, a city is composed of its buildings, and the function of urban services is to provide and transfer resources, goods and people from one built space to another for work, recreation, education, etc.

There are a large number of policies, regulations and codes currently in play for the built sector such as the National Building Code, the Energy Conservation Buildings Code, Environment Impact Assessments, policies governing housing for economically weaker sections of society, etc. In addition, there are also policies, regulations and guidelines that are applicable to urban systems that support buildings, such as the National Urban Sanitation Policy, the National Action Plan on Climate Change and more.  While each individual component has a clear governance structure in place, the integration of the different components is lacking. This project reviewed 27 policies to highlight these issues and identify future integration pathways.