Key role for glass in green buildings: Workshop

With the market size of green building in India poised to grow to 10 billion sqft in 2022 from the current 4.5 billion sqft, technologies and materials, especially glass, would play a key role in this growth. Keeping this in mind and as part of imparting training to 200 quality team personnel from the glass processing industry, the workshop was organised.The workshop was inaugurated by Prof Amlan Kumar Sengupta, Head of Laboratories, Structural Engineering, IIT-M in the presence of Shyambilas Mishra, Head, Process Improvement, System and Technical Services, Asahi India Glass, Dr Jun Zhang, Country HeadIndia, IFC, Prof Arul Jayachandran, Associate Professor and Head,SGRT Facility, Structural Engineering, IIT-M and GN Gohul Deepak, Director, GSI. 

Prof Sengupta unveiled the first of its kind training manual for the glass and glazing systems in India on the occasion. The skill development programme will train around 200 quality team personnel from the processing, fabrication and installation segments of the glass industry. There will be a special emphasis on inducting women into the skill development programme. 

Addressing a gathering, Prof Sengupta said, “Glass with its functional advantages in the areas of energy efficiency, comfort, safety, structural integrity, acoustics and fire resistance, glass has become more and more popular in the construction sector.” 

In his address, Shyambilas Mishra said, “The demand for high performance energy efficient glass is growing very fast in India.” With eight float lines, 200 and odd processing units and over 1000 fabrication and installation units, the industry was reaching all corners of the country and investments were continuing to address the ever-growing demand for quality glass, he said. 

In his speech, Dr Jun Zhang said, “The launch of this initiative on upgrading workers’ skills will contribute to the union government’s flagship initiatives focused on skills and manufacturing.” 

“Skills will be a core area and we will address it for the glass and glazing industry as well,” he added. 

Zhang said, at present, the total registered green footprint of the country was 4.5 billion sqft, which was the second largest in the world after the United States which was 13.8 billion sqft of LEED certification spaces. 

GSI president GN Gohul Deepak said, “This training workshop was the first of its kind in the country and would become the model for such kind of training programmes in future.” 

The Skill development manual was also a first of its kind document, he said, adding, this initiative was timely because of the National Building Code, 2016, and Energy Conservation Building Code, 2017, Bureau of Indian Standards and Bureau of Energy Efficiency have given due importance to architectural glass and glazing systems.