Combat Air Pollution, Energy Insecurity And Climate Change

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Combat Air Pollution, Energy Insecurity And Climate Change

Here’s how your CSR Funding can help reduce regional air pollution, increase energy access in rural areas, increase the share of renewable energy sources in India's power mix, increase India’s energy independence and reduce the emission of climate change enhancing gases!

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This cause is featured on Fund My Project as part of CSRlive.in‘s collaboration with BitGiving.com

Project by: cBalance Solutions Hub

Funding Required: INR 5,00,000

Here’s what the folks at cBalance Solutions Hub have to say about this Project:

The Fairconditioning programme builds energy-efficiency capacity amongst architects, mechanical engineers and influential corporates, enabling them to reduce air pollution, increase energy access in rural areas, improve India’s energy security and combat climate change. 

Who?

Fairconditioning is a non-profit programme born from a collaboration between cBalance Solutions Hub, Pune and Noé21, Geneva.

cBalance Solutions Hub (cBalance), cbalance.in, is a social enterprise based in Mumbai and Pune that aims to facilitate a balance between carbon, ecological cost, and local communities to enable a balance in the global climate.

cBalance was founded by Vivek Gilani, an environmental engineer and Ashoka fellow, along with co-founders Bhagyesh Deo, Gyan Prakash, and Saumya Agarwal. The cBalance team (in alphabetical order) is Dhrumit Parikh, Dhruv Gupta,Dominic Mathew, Milkesh Potdar, Mahima Rathore, Nitin Pasricha, Shreya Mundhra,Renuka Khanzode, Ruchie Kothari, and Vishwajeet Poojary.

cBalance is:

  • A Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) Certified Energy Auditor
  • The developer of the first India-specific GHG Emission Factor Database
  • The India-associate of Best Foot Forward/Anthesis (UK)
  • An empanelled GHG Inventory Consultant with The Green Signal - India's first sustainability ecolabelling programme

Noé21, is a Geneva-based, not-for-profit association of public utility founded in 2003. It is an independent center of competence and action whose mission is to identify, evaluate and promote solutions to climate change, and has been active in fostering the deep retrofitting of the building stock in Geneva to reduce the outstanding contribution to global warming from heating buildings.

Noé21 is a:

  • Alliance for Climate (Zurich) member
  • European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (Stockholm) member
  • European Environment Bureau (Brussels) member
  • Climate Action Network Europe (Brussels) member
  • United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Bonn) accredited NGO
What?
  • Reduce regional air pollution
  • Increase energy access in rural areas
  • Increase the share of renewable energy sources in India's power mix
  • Increase India’s energy independence
  • Reduce the emission of climate change enhancing gases
Reduce Air Pollution
According to a study conducted by cBalance, in 2011-2012, emissions from Indian coal plants resulted in 80,000 to 115,000 premature deaths and more than 20 million asthma cases from exposure to total PM10 pollution. The study quantified additional health impacts such as hundreds of thousands of heart attacks, emergency room visits, hospital admissions, and lost workdays caused by coal-based emissions. It estimates the monetary cost associated with these health impacts to exceed Rs.16,000 to 23,000 crores (USD $3.3 to 4.6 billion) per year.
The largest impact is felt in the states of Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, the Indo-Gangetic plain, and most of central India. Adverse impacts are especially severe for the elderly, children, and those with respiratory disease.

Increase Energy Access in Rural Areas

Disparity in energy access is a direct contributor to disparity in sustainable human development opportunities. Fairconditioning focuses on interventions to redistribute the energy use ‘pie’ - energy waste is rampant in urban centres and load shedding is imparted predominantly on rural areas. India faces an energy shortage of 8.7% as per-capita energy consumption in India increased from 1,471 kWh/year in 1980-81 to 4,816 kWh/year in 2010-2014. A portion of this increase brings no added comfort or service but is lost in the form of pure waste by poorly designed buildings.

Increase the share of renewable energy sources in India's power mix

Increasing the share of power provided by local, renewable and clean energy sources is a national priority. Reaching this goal will be a slow, long term haul as long as power output is wasted on inefficient appliances and buildings and through unadapted consumption patterns. As energy efficiency gains build up, the development of renewable energy generating capacities will be in a much better position to take the lead in providing the added necessary power capacity.

India's Energy Security
In 2009-10, India imported 15% and 70% of its annual coal and oil requirements, respectively. The country is still on the path of increasing its energy insecurity because of inefficient consumption, as indoor cooling demand from India’s buildings is expected to severely strain energy resources. Without added energy efficiency, 1010 new standard-sized coal power plants will need to be constructed by 2030 just to power the ACs from commercial and residential buildings in India. Energy saved from a future building stock made efficient thanks to Fairconditioning can become India's prime clean energy resource. Energy efficiency gains are cheaper than energy generation.
Reduce Climate Change
Energy production in India is highly carbon-intensive. This will increasingly impinge upon India’s climate change mitigation goals under India’s commitment to reduce emission intensity of GDP by 33-35% from 2005 levels by 2030. The contribution of the burgeoning cooling demand from India’s current and future buildings to its GHG emissions is substantial; ACs installed in Indian commercial and residential buildings are expected to emit 338 MT CO2e by the year 2030. This dire prediction is avoidable with contributions such as those of Fairconditioning.
Source: World Bank Data for India’s GHG emissions in 2010: 2864.44 MT CO2e
Why now?
India is going through a building boom right now, just as China has over the past two decades. It is significantly cheaper and easier to design buildings sustainability from scratch then retrofit them later, so now is the time to take action.
fairconditioning 1
Summary of key facts:
  • India is yet to build 70% of the buildings that will exist in 2030
  • If business-as-usual (BAU) is not challenged, the amount of Rooms ACs in India will balloon from 32 million ACs in 2015 to 225 million ACs in 2035 and Commercial ACs from 9 Million-TR in 2015 to 104 Million-TR in 2035.
  • If BAU is not challenged, ACs installed in Indian commercial and residential buildings are expected to emit 338 MT CO2e by the year 2030 (approximately 12% of GHG emissions in 2010).
  • If BAU is not challenged, 1,010 new coal power plants will need to be built by 2030 just to meet energy demand from air conditioning in India.
When?
This programme began on June 1, 2014 and is on-going.
Where?
We're growing a culture of energy efficiency in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai, and Pune. If the programme is successful in India, Fairconditioning can deploy efficiently in any region with a tropical climate and carry forward learnings, content, partnerships, tools and other resources generated to spread the culture of energy efficiency.
How?
Goal
  • Build-up India's energy-efficiency capacity in cooling building interiors.
  • Make sure the upcoming waves of graduating architects and engineers are ready to design and equip India with truly energy efficient buildings.
  • Train practising architects & HVAC engineers, to make them fluent with energy-efficient technologies.
  • Influence corporate managers to harvest energy efficiency gains in their premises.
Objectives:
Universities and Colleges. The "Academic Curricula Integration Project" (ACIP) trains teachers and assists in curricula change to ensure skills are taught related to sustainable cooling technologies (for engineering academia) and sustainable building design (for architecture academia). Our workshops enhance sustainable design pedagogy skills amongst Architecture professors, facilitate activity-based learning processes amongst students and accomplish seamless syllabus integration of sustainability and efficiency into official University-defined curricula.
Practising Architects and Engineers. The "Building Energy Modelling & Advisory Project" (BEMAP) trains practising architects and HVAC consultants to integrate energy-efficiency within the building design process. Architects learn how environmental factors affect a building's performance, how to master the use of quantified data, and to understand pathways to incorporate energy efficiency at every level of the design process. HVAC consultants learn to study the thermal behaviour of buildings prior to their construction and propose better-suited designs.
Corporations / Choice of technology. The "Technology Adoption Project" (TAP) aims to substantially modify the design blueprint of bank branches, residential & commercial building complexes, hotel chains and IT/BPO campuses to embed sustainable cooling at the core of the design DNA through integration of passive thermal comfort design and sustainable cooling technologies.
Corporations / Thermostat settings. The "Corporate Thermal Comfort Policies Campaign Project" (UpBy2) works directly with large corporations and industry associations, as well as policy advocacy bodies, to establish AC thermostat and associated workplace dress-code policies to enable corporate offices in India to operate at 26-28°C without supplementary comfort issues and zero investment needed. Experience from the Japanese ‘Cool Biz’ campaign and similar campaigns at the United Nations, in South Korea and British Trade Union Congress, shows that organizations having set their air conditioners at higher temperatures attain staff acceptance by authorising/promoting loose fitting fashion, odour-fighting laundry detergents and casual outfits.
Our Track Record:
Universities and Colleges (Academic Curricula Integration Project):
  • Architecture Training of Trainers (ToT) Workshop, 12 - 14 March 2016, Bengaluru
  • Engineering Student Certification Workshop, 08 - 12 February 2016, Delhi/NCR
  • Architecture Training of Trainers (ToT) Workshop, 11 - 13 December 2015, Delhi/NCR
  • Architecture Training of Trainers (ToT) Workshop, 03 - 05 October 2015, Mumbai
  • Engineering Student Certificate Workshop, 20 - 24 July 2015, Pune
  • Engineering Student Certificate Workshop, 06 - 10 July 2015, Chennai
  • Roundtable Conference for Architecture Professors, 15 May 2015, Mumbai
  • Engineering Student Certificate Workshop, 27 - 31 January 2015, Pune
  • Architecture Training of Trainers (ToT) Workshop, 09 - 11 January 2015, Mumbai
Practising Architects and Engineers (Building Energy Modelling & Advisory Project): 
  • Thoughtful Cooling Round-table Discussion, 28 May 2016, Pune
  • Thoughtful Cooling Workshop, 25 - 27 March 2016, Bangalore
  • Thoughtful Cooling Workshop, 04 - 06 March 2016, Delhi/NCR
  • Thoughtful Cooling Workshop, 19 - 21 February 2016, Pune
  • Thoughtful Cooling Workshop, 12 - 14 February 2016, Mumbai
  • Thoughtful Cooling Workshop, 27 - 29 November 2015, Bangalore
  • Thoughtful Cooling Workshop, 21 - 23 August, 2015, Mumbai
  • Thoughtful Cooling Workshop, 12 - 14 June 2015, Pune
  • Roundtable Conference for Architecture Professors, 15 May 2015, Mumbai
How will the money be used? 
Our funding target, INR 500,000, will fund six workshops (two of each below); additional money will fund more workshops. Each workshop costs about Rs. 83,000.
fairconditioning 2
Contribute to train 60 Architecture professors at 10 colleges to integrate sustainability within their existing curricula. The goal is curricula-integration of sustainability into the public Architecture university curricula. See workshop agenda here.
fairconditioning 3
Contribute to train 80 mechanical engineering students to design sustainable cooling systems. See workshop agenda here.
fairconditioning 4Contribute to train 48 architects to incorporate sustainable cooling & sustainability principles early in the building-design process. See workshop agenda here.
Workshop Budget Breakdown
Venue: 30,000
Trainer: Round-trip Air Fare: 16,500
Trainer: Honorarium: 9,000
Two-way Ground Transfers: 600
Accommodation: 10,000
Meals: 7,500
Misc. Cost: 10,000
Total: 83,600
Why Crowdfunding? 
To increase awareness about energy efficiency as a prime solution to address major issues, to increase awareness about our programme, and to help Fairconditioning get over a potential funding gap. If would like to discuss a partnership or are an institutional funder, please email us at info@fairconditioning.org.
Want to Fund this Project? Visit BitGiving.com here and support the cause. Looking for funding? If you have a social project that’s high on innovation and impact, but running low on financial fuel, do write in to Nidhi Singh at nidhi@csrlive.in with your proposal, and we’ll feature it on FUND MY PROJECT.