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Sustainability Assessment Method of GRIHA for Sustainable Built

Environment: A Review Based on a Design Perspective

Article · July 2016

DOI: 10.22232/stj.2016.04.02.11

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 Science and Technology Journal, Vol. 4 Issue: II ISSN: 2321-3388

Sustainability Assessment Method of GRIHA for

Sustainable Built Environment: A Review Based on
a Design Perspective
Shiva Ji1 and Ravi Mokashi Punekar2
1
Department of Planning and Architecture, Mizoram University, Aizawl–796004, India
2
Department of Design, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati–781039, India
E-mail: 1arshivaji@gmail.com, 2mokashi.ravi@gmail.com

Abstract—Building industry is the largest world energy consumer at 40% of total world energy. Various agencies across
the world have formulated Sustainability Assessment (SA) methods for its assessment. In India, TERI and Ministry of New
and Renewable Energy, Govt. of India, have established GRIHA as the assessment guideline for the built environment.
SA methods recommend a pre-design check list and post completion assessment of the projects. The major parameters of
evaluation aim to address environmental, social and economic impact on well- being of society. A comparison is drawn
on the broader definition of sustainability which has been adopted world over and it is felt by local practitioners that
the parameters need to be adapted to deal with local situations and conditions for effective results. This paper attempts
to review the various assessment parameters considered under the GRIHA model in the design evaluation of the built
environment considering local conditions in specific locations in the north east. The paper infers to devise a normalization
factor to help achieve equalized balance in achieving sustainability.

Keywords: Sustainability Assessment Method, Sustainability Parameters, Environmental-Social-Economical Aspects,

GRIHA

INTRODUCTION This definition is very broad based and its consideration

Urban societies have an opportunity and potential to plan
for a sustainable ecological footprint through sustainable
design practices. The design as a mediator should aim for a
bigger role to bring people to a balanced approach between
man, objects and environment. In their attempt at creating
designs that are sensual, experiential and inspirational in
the design of products, services and systems the design
should be ecologically friendly.
In 1987, the United Nations World Commission on
Environment and Development, chaired by Gro Harlem
Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway, issued a
report, “Our Common Future”. Among its findings, the report
defined sustainable development as the most accepted
definition of Sustainability viz.
“a form of development that meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs.” [1]
http://doi.org/10.22232/stj.2016.04.02.11
in the context of the built environment must be reviewed by
considerations of factors both external and local. Contextual
forces on site and through building design cannot proceed
without a brief discussion of sustainability and its
constituents [2].
SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT METHOD
OF GRIHA
Although there are various sustainability assessment (SA)
methods available such as LEED, BREEAM, CASBEE, SB
tool among others, the Green Rating for Integrated Habitat
Assessment (GRIHA) tool, is the only state approved
indigenous SA method developed taking local Indian
design, construction and specification. The tool was jointly
developed by The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI)
and Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government
of India in the year 2007 following guidelines outlined
in reference books including ECBC and NBC, etc. It was
 Sustainability Assessment Method of GRIHA for Sustainable Built
designed to provide consultancy in design, building,
operating and maintaining the built environment in an
efficient manner as per sustainability guidelines. The best
of such points addressing issues concerning environment,
society and economic factors were collated and put together
to form GRIHA.
The acronym GRIHA is based on a Sanskrit word
that means ‘abode’. GRIHA tries to minimize carbon
footprint by suggesting the use of localized materials,
tools and techniques that result in low emission rates. In
its version 2015 released in September 2015, it has three
sub-categories viz. - GRIHA, GRIHA Large Development and
SVA-GRIHA for small, versatile and affordable projects.
In its approach to planning and construction of the built
environment, GRIHA outlines three stages of a planned and
integrated process:
1. Pre-construction stage: It discusses about location, kind
of land, soil, transport and natural features like flora
and fauna, etc.
2. Building Planning and Construction: It discusses
conservation of resources, their recovery/recycling/
reuse, water, energy, air and health & wellbeing, etc.
3. Building Operation and Maintenance: It discusses
building systems and processes, energy consumption,
and overall environment, etc.
Performance in GRIHA is Measured Along the Following
Parameters
Project Scope:
• Site Planning
• Innovation and Design
• Indoor Air Quality
• Material
• Energy Efficiency
• Water Efficiency
• Facilities and Services
METHODOLOGY
A scope analysis of SA methods is undertaken to understand
what all is being addressed for the efficient sustainable
design of buildings. A cross-comparison analysis of
prevailing sustainability definitions given by prominent
scholars and academicians from across world and drawing
parallels with sustainability assessment method of GRIHA.
Literature survey has given expert opinions on actual
157
applicability of Sustainability methods, tools and techniques.
Various scientists, engineers have applied these in their
projects, many have gauged effectiveness with proven cross
methods and have made established results public. This has
helped us drawing inferences out of mentioned methods in
this paper.
There are various methods, tools and techniques to
measure Sustainability and all are being used at their
place of development and other places too. These are
developed by scientists, team of experts, sponsored by
local Governments and other authorities, etc. All are being
practiced independently in their contexts of origin and
otherwise. The very purpose of SA methods is of saving
and managing on materials, processes, energy, manpower,
waste, byproducts, etc. In ISO 21929 (2011) sustainability
impacts are categorized as: Environmental; Social and
Economic (ESE) aspects.
A need was felt to analyze all criteria over ESE parameters
and discuss so that a clarity on its universal scope can be
drawn. An assessment can be done for identification of the
better method considering environmental effects. In one
opinion, sustainable design has a bigger role to envision,
illustrate and realize the thought processed habits which
follow to a balanced approach between man, objects and
environment. It’s a mediators role to bring people from
a damaging practice to rehabilitation of our ecology by
creating alternate designs to sensual, experiential and
inspirational concepts, products, services and systems.
Fig. 1: GRIHA Allocated Weightage to Various Major
Categories of Criterion
 Ji and Punekar
The impact categories provide an ambitious agenda
for the buildings industry that is readily actionable when
presented in the simple GRIHA framework: prerequisites,
credits and points. The GRIHA structure is designed to
incentives progressively higher credit achievement and
in turn progressively higher compliance with credits
whose outcomes accomplish the system goals. A theory
based analysis was taken into research for drawing cross-
comparison of allocated points in this paper.
OBSERVATIONS/RESULTS
The tables below present GRIHA v2015 analysis on three
pillars of sustainability. The preliminary study result in
Fig. 1 suggests more weightage is given to categories of
Energy, Water and Sustainable building materials among all 9
categories. The environmental conscious material selection,
choosing methods with less impact on surroundings, cutting
down the carbon footprint of the project, low impact design
elements, saving on air, water, noise and soil pollution while
working and overall are the major points of GRIHA and
carry multiple points. The material selection and choosing
low consumption electrical gadgets, water gadgets has been
emphasized and practically it may result into a significant
saving and would result in low on resource consumption by
the project once it is in operation.
We see introduction of Socio-Economic Strategies
which holds provision for welfare of working force on site
such has labors (skilled and unskilled), female workers,
their children and their safety, housing, drinking water,
transportation, sanitation and hygiene, etc. Generally the
unorganized sector of work force has remained on the
margins with almost nil attention towards their comfort and
safety. This shows the attention paid by GRIHA toward the
social aspects of construction sector.
GRIHA Allocated Number
S. No. GRIHA Category
Weightage of Items
1 Site Planning 8 6
2 Construction Management 9 9
3 Energy 20 10
4 Occupant Comfort & Well 12 8 6
Being
5 Water 17 10
6 Sustainable Building 14 9 9
Materials
7 Solid Waste Management 6 4
8 Socio-Economic Strategies 6 7
9 Performance Monitoring & 12 9 7
Validation
Total 104 72
Fig. 2: GRIHA Weightage Summary by Category
158
As it appears allocated points in GRIHA have potential
to fall in to one, two or may be all three aspects of ESE at
the same time. It gives a possible hint towards designing and
choosing such points in a manner that they may prove to be
appropriate for all three main aspects of sustainability. Some
points are highly singularly focussed and are applicable
towards their focussed area only and are falling in one
category only. Such points can be adjusted with adjusting
more points into other aspects and has given scope for
forming a normalization factor for allocated points so that
an even distribution of points van be achieved to satisfy the
criteria of being called a sustainable solution.
The number of points which are falling into ESE aspects
have been listed in Fig. 2. As the results have shown, the
economic aspect is lagging behind the most followed by
social aspect by a big margin in comparison to environmental
aspect. This has been further elaborated by each point
in Fig. 3. On a scale of 72 items from GRIHA v2015 the
total scores of ESE aspects are 58, 42 and 31 respectively.
The results infer for a common platform to discuss and
broaden the scope of GRIHA and create a normalization
factor to establish an equalized approach towards achieving
sustainability through the SA method of GRIHA.
The Systems Approach for Evaluation of Sustainable
Building Researches on similar subjects have adopted
systems approach for examining sustainability of buildings,
which follow the principle that systems can be described
by their components and interrelationships within the
systems. For instance, Edum-Fotwe and Price (2009) [3]
developed a specification for the ontological topography,
which defines three broad categories: those which represent
spatial scales, urban systems and development life cycles,
and sustainability dimensions and their associated issues
and sub-issues, such as stakeholders, impact, influences and
polices associated with any entity.
SD Criteria Catered to Following Aspects
Remarks
Environmental Social Economical
6 3 3
8 5 3
10 4 5
8 1
9 3 8
3 4
2 2 1
1 7 0
7 6
58 42 31
 Sustainability Assessment Method of GRIHA for Sustainable Built

Fig. 3: GRIHA v2015 List of Criteria and Rating Structure

159
 Ji and Punekar

Fig. 4: GRIHA Allocated Vs. Catered Points by Categories on ESE Aspects

Although these research attempts are helpful to gain waste generation, and overall ecological impact to within
insights into the complexity of the Sustainable Building certain nationally acceptable limits/benchmarks; which
systems, they fail to explore how the dialectics are dealt could form to become nodes of a system but still doesn’t
with in practice. Human Habitats (buildings) interact with exactly follows the systemic approach of design.
the environment in various ways. Throughout their life
Going by the old adage ‘what gets measured, gets
cycles, from construction to operation and then demolition,
managed,’ GRIHA attempts to quantify aspects such as
they consume resources in the form of energy, water,
energy consumption, waste generation, renewable energy
materials, etc., and emit wastes either directly in the form of
adoption, etc., so as to manage, control and reduce the same
municipal wastes or indirectly as emissions from electricity
to the best possible extent. But largely remains inattentive
generation. Considering postulate as above and drawing a
on softer aspects of issues related to society, localized
parallel with the points of GRIHA as given in Fig. 3; GRIHA
considerations, etc. As the Fig. 4 suggests, the aspects
attempts to minimize a building’s resource consumption,

160
 Sustainability Assessment Method of GRIHA for Sustainable Built

of Society and Economy are largely performing lower in

comparison to 80.55% by Environmental aspect at 58.33%
and 43.05% respectively; of 72 points allocated in overall
categories put together by GRIHA v2015. As per this analysis
the overall share of ESE aspects on the 72 points allocated by
GRIHA stands at 44.27%, 32.06% and 23.66% respectively.
It infers the potential for improvement in present version
of GRIHA by a normalization factor to equalize all three
aspects proportionately for achieving target of Sustainable
Built Environment Design as compared to being just a green
building guideline. The former caters to the wider scope to
address impact of building industry rather than just being
Chart 1: ESE Correlation
efficient on energy saving part. A green “energy efficient
building” caters to only one aspect of it [4] but as the scope On a broader scale, this system, along with the activities
of inclusion widens [5] it reaches to “environment friendly and processes that lead up to it, will benefit the community
building” and then to “sustainable building”. at large with the improvement in the environment by
reducing GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions, reducing
energy consumption and the stress on natural resources,
DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION etc. GRIHA compliance for a typical office building
used for 8 hours results in 30%–50% reduction in
Internationally, voluntary building rating systems have
energy consumption compared to GRIHA benchmarks,
been instrumental in raising awareness and popularizing
40–65% reduction in building water consumption compared
green building designs. However, most of the internationally
to GRIHA base case and implementation of good practices
devised rating systems have been tailored to suit the
on site at no/negligible incremental cost.
commercial interests of building industry of the country
where they were developed. TERI, being committed to The scatter chart 1 shows correlation between two
every aspect of sustainable development, took upon itself variables i.e. GRIHA allocated items and ESE aspects. Scatter
the responsibility of acting as a driving force to popularize charts map correlation between two variables. The closer
green buildings by developing a tool for measuring and the points are to forming a diagonal line, the stronger the
rating a building’s environmental performance in the correlation! The below charts describe distribution pattern
context of India. of GRIHA weightage and standard deviation of values on
ESE Aspects. The polynomial trend-line shows consistency
of three chosen aspects of ESE.

Environmental Aspect of
Sustainability
Though GRIHA undertakes principles from National
Building Code, Energy Conservation Building Code, etc.,

Figure 5: ESE Ratio and Distribution of Points in GRIHA

v2015 Chart 2: Environmental Aspect Correlation

161
 Ji and Punekar

but a region based approach is needed to be integrated at

concept stage of design. The remedial measures taken in
global designs to make them fit in situations goes beyond
the definition of sustainability. Though it works fine in
performance but falls short on social aspects. The scatter
chart 2 shows correlation between two variables i.e. GRIHA
allocated items and environmental aspects.

Social Aspect of Sustainability

The health, well-being, economic integration with
the project and its constituents like (sourcing,
manufacturing, transportation, use and after-life,
etc.), safety measures along with principled aspects
of context based architectural design like history,
geography, heritage and culture of place needs to be
integrated too. The scatter chart 3 shows correlation
between two variables i.e. GRIHA allocated items and social
aspects.
Chart 4: Economic Aspect Correlation
Further Work/Suggestions
India is a country with diverse and distinct regional/
geographical/climatic differences. From year long cold
to year long hot regions, heavy to very low precipitation
regions, from arid to humid regions, from plains to
mountains, and many more. This poses a challenge for
localized architectural solutions. Though these regions have
their vernacular architecture practices but in contemporary
times of growth and development, we have a globalized style
of construction which has taken shape in last few decades
in India. The regional challenges must be addressed with
localized attention so that they can sustain over time. This
puts a need for regional versions of GRIHA for its optimum
customization for our various geographical regions.

Greater attention is required of the social sector so

Chart 3: Social Aspect Correlation
Economic Aspect of Sustainability
The economic inclusion perspective of sustainable
development takes along all the stakeholders of the place
and system. The widespread reach of this aspect doesn’t
behave in exclusivity but opposite to inclusivity of all. To
sustain the bump of industrialized style of development has
to be bring in the inclusivity for all. The costing on lifecycle
analysis, performance costing and cost to the people on
their livelihood and impact needs to be calculated and taken
care of. The scatter chart 4 shows correlation between two
variables i.e. GRIHA allocated items and economic aspects.
that instead of forcing down the globalized solutions for
everything, we should recognize our vernacularity and
promote it in our designs. A new interpretation of regional
styles is needed to bring at par with global solutions pushed
under commercial interests.
Further it can be linked with Distributed Design
approach floated from Learning Network on Sustainability
(LeNS) so that more personalized/customized inputs can be
drawn from the end users of design.
The parametric evaluation of sustainability assessment
methods to draw detailed comparison and find out
distributed design and framework for contextualized
requirements for various geographic and cultural regions.

162
 Sustainability Assessment Method of GRIHA for Sustainable Built
REFERENCES
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General Assembly as an Annex to document A/42/427-
Development and International Co-operation: Environment.
http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm (Accessed: 21
June 2016).
2. Ching, D. K. 2007. Architecture Form Space & Order. John
Wiley & SOnes, Inc. New Jersey.
3. Edum-Fotwe, F. T. and Price, A. D. F. 2009. A social ontology
for appraising sustainability of construction projects and
developments. International J. Project Management 27:
313-322.
163
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4. Alwaer, H. and Clements-Croome, D. J. 2010. Key performance
indicators (KPIs) and priority setting in using the multi-
attribute approach for assessing sustainable intelligent
buildings. Building Environ. 45(4): 799-807.
5. Chwieduk, D. 2003. Towards sustainable-energy buildings.
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6. Design, constructional practices and safety In National
Building Code of India 2005. New Delhi: BIS.
7. Energy Conversation Building Code (ECBC). Bureau of
Energy Efficiency, Ministry of Power, Government of India.
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