GRIHA - Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment

The GRIHA full form is Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment. This tool of rating the habitats helps people to assess the overall performance of their dwelling places, precisely buildings. This takes into consideration the various benchmarks that are nationally accepted.

A building has a life cycle. The rating system observes how a building performs throughout its life cycle. Special emphasis is put on holistic environmental performance and its evaluation. Thus, a set of standards are established. Those buildings that abide by these standards get marked as ‘green buildings’.

As a part of the UPSC Syllabus, GRIHA is significant and requires thorough attention from the students. So, to ensure high grades and a good position in the exam, every aspirant should concentrate on the topic of GRIHA.

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The Concept of GRIHA

GRIHA is actually a Sanskrit word that means ‘abode’. This takes into consideration the interaction of human habitats with the surrounding environment. Now, this interaction can happen in more than one way. Construction of the building marks the start of the life cycle. While the building is demolished completely, it is marked as the end of the life cycle. However, buildings consume huge amounts of resources throughout their life cycle. These resources are materials, energy, and water, among others.

Wastes are produced by these buildings directly as municipal wastes and indirectly as the emissions from the process of electricity generation. GRIHA is a system that aims to minimize the resource consumption and waste generation of the buildings. This way, the ecological impact of the same is also reduced.

The UPSC syllabus covers the aims and advantages of implementing GRIHA on the overall ecological balance of the planet. GRIHA considers that once the resource consumption and waste generation rates are measured, they can be easily managed. Thus, the GRIHA system quantifies the related aspects of resource consumption, renewable energy adoption, and waste generation.

This is done to manage, control, and reduce the above-mentioned aspects as far as possible, keeping a balance between the buildings and the overall ecological balance. One of the most important and relevant aspects covered in the UPSC Notes is certainly the balance between the emerging concepts and the established practices.

International Recognition of the GRIHA

In the international context, the GRIHA rating system serves as an innovative tool in the hands of the United Nations for the purpose of sustainable development. This acts as a significant tool for the implementation of renewable energy in the construction sector with the help of ‘The Climate Reality Project’.

The “Common Carbon Metric” is considered to be a major tool in this context that helps in data collection on international building energy. For the purpose of data collection, inputs are taken from the GRIHA. The international recognition of this rating system is of much importance in the UPSC 2022.

(Source: https://www.grihaindia.org/reaffirming-india)

Indian Implementation of the GRIHA

The Indian government accepts the GRIHA standards as a much-needed standard for the ecological balance in the country. Let’s take the example of the Maharashtra government. This government provides incentives to the occupants and developers of projects that comply with the GRIHA standards.

GRIHA has been adopted by the Government of Delhi Cabinet as well as by the cabinets of other major states. The students should study Indian acceptance of the GRIHA project as a part of their IAS Preparation. This will be extremely relevant given the syllabus of these exams.