Saving Energy, Saving Future: Go Green this 30th National Energy Conservation Day
The need to ramp up Energy Conservation in 2020
The Voice of Canada/Chandigarh News
By Tripat Girdhar – Socio-environment Specialist, Chandigarh
With the advancement of society and civilization comes the need to protect our natural resources. Therefore, National Energy Conservation Day is celebrated every 14th of December in India since 1991, to spread awareness about the importance and the need to conserve energy. The increasing gap between electrical energy’s supply and demand is a major reason signifying the importance of energy conservation. This gap can be bridged with the help of energy conservation making it a new cost effective and environmental friendly resource. Planners have already begun to understand the importance and value of energy efficiency in India’s future energy scenario.
In today’s scenario where National energy conservation day has a huge significance, Contribution from every industry is required for an actual change. There is massive scope of energy conservation in various industries, such as domestic industry, agriculture, architecture etc.
It is required that we be futuristic yet careful of the climate and nature. Optimal utilization of the resources and usage of ethical standards is important. In these trying times, where Climate Change, Pollution, Global Warming and many more issues are having adverse effects on the environment. It is imperative that Architects need to focus on the ethics that balances with the aesthetics. Ethical Architecture is the need of this hour. The process of Empathetic designing starts at the planning stage and one must be careful of the materials and methods used in the design, taking into considerations concepts like Water efficiency, energy efficiency by using solar energy, materials efficiency etc.
Getting involved in practices that make the difference like selection of materials responsibly etc. Approximately, 15 per cent of a building’s carbon emissions can be curbed by designing consciously in terms of structure, and efficiently for less wastage of materials, such as reducing off-cuts, and approximately 20 per cent can be prevented by switching to less wasteful and more recycled materials.
It is necessary to give equal importance to designing concepts like permeable paving, green buildings etc. Green buildings in their design, construction and operation create positive impacts, on our climate and natural environment. There are many features which can make a building ‘green’. Such as efficient usage of energy, water and other resources, usage of renewable energy, usage of pollution and waste reduction measures enabling of re-use and recycling and usage of non-toxic materials and recycled materials.
In our age of chaos, environmental damage, and aggressive increase in the human population, it is imperative that we as architects must increase our horizons and get involved in ethical architecture. The rapid depletion of finite resources is a threat to the face of Humanity. It makes us all gullible to the unforeseen challenges and disasters. Therefore, we should all celebrate the concept of energy conservation every day.
As the demand for energy is increasing, so is the capacity to produce it. Addressing this, The Government of India’s Energy Conservation Act-2001 is the first step in this path and has shown promising results. Recent interventions have demonstrated positive success, but more promising initiatives need to be evaluated to assess it in the sense of the current global transformation of power system changes, so that they will able to solve poverty, equity, environmental and public health challenges.
In the coming years, the national energy conservation movement will dramatically reduce the need for fresh investment in energy supply systems. All-out attempts to understand this ability are imperative. Conservation of resources is a goal to which all citizens in the world should contribute. Any energy consumer and producer, whether a household or a warehouse, a small shop or a large commercial building, a farmer or an office worker, can and must make this effort for his or her own benefit, as well as that of the country. The need for a sustainable world is to save electricity.
A comprehensive approach to energy management and energy conservation studies and action plans to improve power generation from traditional and renewable resources would meet the rising energy demands of the future of India. In this path, time has come to describe and act.
