Building codes are not new to India, and the first iteration of the National Building Code (NBC) dates back to 1970. While the NBC had general building guidelines in place, there were none pertaining to regulating emissions from the building sector. In 2002, the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) was established under the Energy Conservation Act to spearhead energy and emission-related regulations. This led to the formation of India’s energy efficiency codes – the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) in 2007 for commercial buildings and the Eco Niwas Samhita (ENS) in 2018 for residential buildings.
Embodied emissions are released during the material sourcing, construction, and demolition stages of the building life cycle.
However, these codes consider only the operational emissions of a building, which account for approximately 69% of the total emissions. The remaining 31% is embodied emissions, which is unaccounted for in the existing versions of the codes (see image for details). Embodied emissions are released during the material sourcing, construction, and demolition stages of the building life cycle. Considering that the share of embodied emissions is significant, regulating these emissions would be crucial for decarbonising the building sector and contributing to India’s net-zero target. This highlights the need for a code for assessing, monitoring, and managing embodied emissions.
