On the other hand, Vishwanath hopes the conference will provide a fillip to her work, via awareness about alternative energy and water solutions. “I hope it will bring change in the minds of architects,” says Vishwanath. “Instead of thinking green buildings and putting in double-layered glass to keep the heat out, Copenhagen should now make them wonder how they can make a building without any glass at all.”
On any given day, you may catch eco-designer Nidhi Singh in an outfit made from organic bamboo or a jacket made from organic cotton, teamed with a bag or belt made from organic khadi. It’s not like the co-founder of Indigreen, a fashion and design outfit, believes in aggressive advertising. But she wants people to talk about her products in the hope that they will also eventually discuss things like being eco-conscious.
Singh’s products are certainly conversation starters: She melds Bollywood with the environment to come up with unforgettable T-shirt lines like Amitabh Bachchan from Deewar mouthing Mere Paas Dharti Maa Hai, or Gabbar Singh demanding Yeh Earth mujhe de de Thakur, or Shah Rukh from Swades musing, Gaon ja ke solar panel lagaoonga.
Singh spent two years researching before she set up Indigreen, to get the right mix of ingredients. She begged manufacturers to sell her 100 per cent organic cotton before they exported it all, located eco-friendly paints and then employed out-of-work Hindi film poster makers to draw her products. They aren’t cheap — some T-shirts cost as much as Rs3,000, and some bags, about Rs3,200 — but given Singh makes only 20 units of each piece, they are limited-edition and popular. “The stores I retail at are permanently out of stock,” says Singh, 30. And adds: “Irrespective of what comes out of Copenhagen, the economy is going green. So it would be a smart choice for people to do so too.”
We need cities of mud
Adarsh Vansay is usually busy chasing the wind. The renewable energy advocate, and director of Eco-Save India, usually carries his anemometer around with him – a laptop-sized box which has all his wind speed-and-direction measuring equipment. When he can, Vansay sets up wind turbines on the roof of a building to as a source of alternative energy, and channels the power generated into a battery.
In fact, his house in Bangalore is powered by a wind-solar hybrid installation, which has, according to Vansay, enabled him to completely “get off the grid”. He can run about 10 lights, two fans and some appliances (a mixer-grinder, even the washing machine) with power captured on his solar UPS. While Vansay has set up similar installations atop many buildings in Bangalore, the piece de resistance are the two 16-storey apartment blocks that use only power-conserving LED lights.
“All common spaces – the lobby, elevators, foyer, basement parking and other areas – are lit up by LED,” says Vansay. “Residential apartments can be huge guzzlers of power. The energy consumption, with LED, has come down by 70 per cent, and the buildings will recover their investment in a year and a half.” In time, Vansay expects, the building society will also pass on the benefits of saved costs to the residents.
Vansay first began by conducting programmes around renewable energy solutions in the rural areas. He has placed solar and wind installations in homes, offices and even some farmhouses in and around Bangalore. Recently, he even carried out a street-lighting project in Lonavala, and is currently scoping options in Alibaug. “What’s happening in Copenhagen is disappointing,” says Vansay, 38.
“It’s evident who has to make the larger effort to control emissions. But this new brand of ecopreneurs are not waiting around for an agreement. The number of solar panel or wind turbine manufacturers, and other small integrators, would’ve grown anyway, with increased awareness, funding and government subsidies, even without Copenhagen or Kyoto.” In fact, adds Vansay, Copenhagen, by turning the mandate of technology transfer into mere information sharing, has taken a step backwards. “Now we’ll have to work harder to create new technologies, where we could have simply saved time, money and effort on improving existing ones.”
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