Brookfield Properties Hosts 'Sustainability Talks' for Greener, More-Efficient Workspaces

The talks highlighted the role of passive architecture, use of solar and renewable resources, water conservation, waste management, green mobility solutions and clean indoor air  across Candor Techspace campuses and the initiatives taken by individual corporate occupiers for reducing carbon footprint. 

Brookfield Properties celebrated this World Environment Day by hosting 'Sustainability Talks,' a special campaign on creating a green built environment and workspaces. The dialogue brought forth several initiatives and ideas on sustainable practices adopted by Brookfield Properties and its corporate occupiers at Candor TechSpace. Some of the best practices shared included:

* Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc’s. upgrade of its lighting systems to LED, across more than 320,000 square feet, saving over 38% (178,000 kWh) in energy.

* RBS has set ambitious new goals to continue its decarbonisation, aiming to be climate positive by 2025 for its own operations through a combination of emissions reductions and carbon offsetting. RBS India office has completely replaced single use plastic from its office, with biodegradable options.

* Sopra Steria, an occupier of Candor TechSpace, has replaced 90% of diesel cars used for employee commuting with CNG cabs, which resulted in a significant reduction of GHG emissions.

* Similarly, Fidelity Investment Limited has managed to save 1181 tonnes of carbon footprint and 1003 trees.

* SE2 occupier of Candor TechSpace Sec48, Gurugram, has taken initiatives to reduce water consumption by installing aerators in washrooms and hand washing areas and introducing electric vehicle transport.

* Wipro Ltd.  has partnered with non-profit organisation like Uthaan for plantation of hundreds of trees. 

* Candor TechSpace has converted its conventional watering systems and green belts into drip irrigation, resulting in a 50% reduction in water usage for horticultural purposes. Along with Sewerage Treatment Plant to reuse and recycle water, 3,780-kiloliters of water per day is saved. With 1.19 MWp of installed capacity, the company is also one of the largest amongst IT ITS SEZ when it comes to rooftop solar power.

Mr. Sameer Saxena, VP & Head,  Real Estate, Marsh and Mclennan Companies Inc. and Ms. Deepti Agarwal, VP location and property strategy lead India & Property Projects Lead, North India RBS,  Mr. Vasudevan Suresh, Chairman Indian Green Building Council,  Mr. Manit Rastogi, Founding Partner, Morphogenesis and Mr. Shantanu Chakraborty, Senior VP & Regional Head, India office, Brookfield Properties,  participated in the Sustainability Talks.

The panel discussed several existing challenges faced by traditional workspaces and emphasised the importance of reshaping conventional office architecture with passive and constructive infrastructural designs that fit the current digital needs of new-age professionals.

Commenting on the same, Brookfield Properties spokesperson said, "The environmental, social and governance management, known as ESG management, is core to how we conduct our business across the globe. In sync with this vision, we constantly strive to improve our operations and buildings performance on energy, water and waste to reduce our carbon footprint. We take extra care in ensuring clean indoor and on campus air, to improve productivity."

Brookfield Properties has achieved many accolades for its green initiatives, including platinum rating from the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) for two of its Candor Techspace properties.