We Would Like To Become Water Positive At Every Site We Work On.

Sourabh Mukherjee
Executive Vice President – Clean Energy & Sustainability, Tata Projects

What is your view on following sustainable practices in construction?

Sustainability is intertwined with business like never before, and today, no business can survive without having a clear and defined approach towards sustainability. And construction industry cannot remain an exception, being the leading contributor of the global carbon footprint. Climate change impacts remain the single biggest challenge to the planet, and the world has agreed on a Net Zero target; India taking its own pledge to reach Net Zero by 2070. If Net Zero is to become a reality, we need to entirely reimagine how we approach the construction of mega projects. Clients and their contractors across the world must step up how they engage, design and build. Because the traditional way of project execution will not take the planet anywhere near to its Net Zero targets. 

What are the major challenges in adopting sustainable methods in construction?  

I rate the construction industry as one of the prime hard-to-abate sectors, primarily built around steel and cement, facing multiple challenges in its journey to sustainability.

• Reducing the embodied carbon and transitioning to carbon-efficient methods and materials remains the most significant challenge.
• Other major challenges include lack of funding as well as restrictions on expenditure and reluctance to incur higher capital cost when needed to include sustainable practices.
• Lack of long-term perspective, as well as a lack of awareness adds to this. Globally, the general perception that addressing sustainability always leads to incurring greater capital cost.
• In the build environment, on an average, roughly 76% of the carbon emission comes during the operating cycle of a building; So myopic approach towards capex during construction, without addressing the operational carbon impact, leads to resistance to change, during construction.
• Insufficient/inconsistent policies, regulations, incentives, and lack of commitment by leadership also becomes an impediment. World over regulatory mandates, laced with incentives, have helped usher in sustainable practices, and our construction world needs similar fillip.
• Also, local market structures and ease of entry have resulted in a fragmented landscape of mostly small companies with limited economies of scale.
• And finally, insufficient integration and link-up in the industry, both upstream and downstream, and limited research and development efforts towards sustainable solutions.

How is the company adopting sustainable construction practices in its projects?

Tata Group companies have announced their ambitious Net Zero 2045 target and we have aligned our businesses with the goals of the Group.

Our sustainability agenda is built on resource efficiency, creating low carbon operations, promoting green vendors, and incorporating engineering innovations to reduce our environmental and ecological impact. This is done through dedicated efforts across our project sites wherein we are pursuing our vision of being the most sustainable infrastructure company in the world.

Our major focus areas are material management, use of alternate and sustainable materials, modular construction techniques, water and waste management along with developing sustainable supply chain by encouraging green vendors.

On the materials management side, we have developed systems to monitor our material consumption by their categories. This system helps us to ensure optimal material usage across our operations thus contributing to the circular economy agenda.

With a focus on sustainable material selection, our philosophy is to precisely articulate the criteria for material management by reducing, reusing, and promoting the judicious use of resources across all our sites. We promote use of alternate materials such as fly ash, Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBS), fly ash bricks and AAC (Autoclave Aerated Concrete) blocks that are made from waste generated from thermal power and steel plants. We are also using PPC cement for making concrete across our sites, replacing conventional shuttering, made of plywood and batten, with steel/aluminium/PVC/system formworks. We have partnered with suppliers who provide simplified solutions to recycling construction & demolition (C&D) waste and producing M-Sand which replaces natural sand.

Using modular construction techniques such as pre-cast and prefabricated elements, not only helped us improve our overall productivity but also helped reduce material wastage. We also focus on Value Engineering and Lean Engineering to enhance productivity and ensure that our sites function with factory-like precision. Towards the same, we have implemented Building Information Modelling (BIM) systems and other state-of-the-art software, aimed at evaluating designed building features, systems and material selection thereby achieving lower material cost and wastage.

Water remains a critical shared resource and we have undertaken initiatives to reduce, reuse, recycle and re-generate water in our operations to the maximum possible extent reducing our dependency on freshwater. Towards better measurement, monitoring and managing, we have installed water meters at various sites and been able to consistently reduce our water footprint through use of curing compounds, PC-based admixtures, curing pump synchronisation and use of sprinklers. We have also installed WTP/STP at our labour colonies to recycle water and reusing in other activities. Additionally, our aim is to become ‘water positive’ in the
coming days.

How can technology bring in sustainability in construction? What are the technologies adopted by the company towards sustainable construction?

There is no qualm in saying the construction industry, specifically in India, is a laggard in the use and adoption of digital technologies. And we at Tata Projects want to break the stereotype. Tata Projects continues its journey to leverage cutting-edge digital technology to deliver better, safer, faster, more cost-efficient and resilient outcomes for its customers. And digitalisation and innovation are the two pillars to that. We encourage every team member to be a creative thinker and for that innovation to take place across every part of the Group’s business.

Furthermore, our works are being delivered more effectively by using BIM (Building Information Modelling) in the form of 3D digital representation of the projects for scheduling, which helps us to reduce the turnaround time, wastages and ensuring seamless communication between engineering and project management teams. In some select cases, we have used 3D BIM overlaid with 4D details on project and resource planning, operations review and formulating catch-up plans. Together with augmented and VR technology enables seamless interaction between project sites and offices, facilitating a ‘first time right’ and ‘zero rework’.

We are looking at technology to decarbonise our project sites, and Tata Projects has signed an MoU with CSIR-IIP Dehradun, and intends to utilise 100% indigenously developed, world-class technologies developed by CSIR-IIP and use bio-diesel at our sites. The pilot project is underway at one of our road building sites, to be replicated at others.

We are installing an organic waste to biogas unit at another of our major airport sites, using the organic waste generated form our Labour Colony to be used as cooking gas in the staff cafeteria. Extremely rich manure generated from this unit will be used for the green belt and horticulture. Not only it checks our sustainability goals, but it makes true economic sense to take this piloting to all our major sites.  

Over the next few years, as our grid gets greener, we would like to electrify our heavy machinery and fleet at site, as also become water positive at every site we work on. Incidentally at our New Parliament Building (NPB) sites, we were able to recycle around 98% of our total water used, through the use of latest water management technologies. On the circular economy front, at NPB, Tata Projects put in place a streamlined process for collection, segregation and utilisation of plastic waste generated during the course of the project. Plastic packaging from furniture, personal protective equipment, stone wrappings, PET bottles used during client visits, etc. were collected through designated collection bins/plastic banks across the site. These were then reconverted into value added products such as T-shirts, temporary barricades, pen stands, carry bags, etc. The project led to around 850 kg of plastic waste being converted into useful products, instead of ending up in landfills.  

What is the way forward for making construction more sustainable? What are your future plans in this direction?

As I mentioned earlier, transition to low carbon building materials is the key to decarbonising the construction environment. The cement industry is responsible for about a quarter of all industry CO₂ emissions, and it also generates the most CO₂ emissions per dollar of revenue. Addressing cement emissions is therefore critical in propelling the transition. An important supplement to reducing embodied emissions is developing a closed loop economy by minimising waste sent to landfills. This can be improved in several ways, starting with making accurate estimates of required construction materials via tools such as BIM, ensuring the recycling of demolition waste, or, in the case of modular construction, using potential end-of-life building components or products.

Similarly, moving to low carbon steel, eventually into green steel, over the coming years would further enhance this objective. Tata Projects is working closely with our cement and steel suppliers to address this need.

Overall, no single player in the ecosystem can tackle the complex issues on their own, and there is an urgent need for players to collaborate and increase transparency to accelerate the green transition. Partnerships and mobilisation are needed to realise the pathways to build and scale new materials and technologies in a cost-efficient and timely manner. Measuring sustainability effects and benefits using consistent metrics offers better points for comparison and enables competitive financing. It also allows companies to guide end consumers on choices.

With the climate change challenges manifesting itself increasingly every passing day, the construction industry has no other choice but to be more sustainable; and exciting times lay ahead in this journey. At Tata Projects, we are on the right track and confident of building a Greener Earth tomorrow, where our future generation move from mere sustainability of the planet to prospe