Smart Green Summit And Awards

The summit, held for a one-of-a-kind congregation of industry stalwarts in sustainability, showcased sustainable living and felicitated top brands.

Date: December 16, 2016.
Venue: Mumbai.
Organiser: The Economic Times and Saint-Gobain.

The mandate of creating tomorrow´s sustainable living spaces was fast forwarded at the second edition of the Smart Green Summit & Awards. The mega-event was a unique platform for discussions, panels and exhibitions among key stakeholders, leaders and bureaucrats in the industry.

Today, sustainability focuses not only on the growing need of eco-friendly built environments but also on intelligently using and re-using the resources available. The key speaker of the event, Ken Yeang, Senior Principal and Founder, TR Hamzah & Yeang Sdn Bhd, added,´I see great design as the integration of ecostructure; this involves nature, humans, water and the built environment. And so, great design involves all of this. We have no time to lose. We need to see how we can emulate nature and bring it into our built environment, so that we can give back to nature what we have taken from it.´

The summit plunged deep into how sustainable practices worldwide are being integrated through innovating and evolving conventional practices and defining the path forward towards achieving world-class status in environmental sustainability. James Law, Chairman & CEO & Chief Cybertect, James Law Cybertecture, further elaborated,´We must bear in mind that as people come together to live, we need to create better cities. Through eons, we have always had a fight between the built and the natural. This dichotomy exists even today, and we have to bring a flavour of this to the lives of those living in our new-born cities.´

Technology is here to help us, provided we are willing to use it for citizens´ advantage. Governance plays a key role in this, and none of the pieces of a smart city can work in isolation. Ajay Pandey, Managing Director & Group CEO, GIFT City, said,´The key to success lies in creating an integrated solution for the citizens. What is important is urban governance, even more than the bells and whistles of technology. Enabling governing provisions can ease the life of common citizens.´

Actor and environmentalist Dia Mirza, who was present at the event, shared a unique perspective on sustainability:´India has the second largest population on the planet, that is fighting for space on 7 per cent of the land on this planet. And, in that 7 per cent, we need to find a way to exist with our forests, and the species that keep these forests alive.

We must learn to co-exist with this biodiversity, because all of our progress will be pointless if we don't have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink in the next 20 years.´

Being sustainable can be accelerated by good use of smart technology. R Subramanian, Managing Director, Glass and Solutions in India-Glass Business, Saint-Gobain, shared his views on the summit, adding, ´Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come. Sustainability is that idea, and the Smart Green Summit is the way through which we reaffirm our commitment to greater sustainability.´

Deepak Lamba, President, Times Strategy Solutions, shared his point of view on going green and following the sustainable pathway into the future, adding about India being a world leader in frugal innovation, which can easily spark eco-friendly and sustainable solutions. Optimsim is the key, and it is essential to strike a balance between human development and environmental sustainability.

The Smart Green Summit & Awards also felicitated the best brands of innovation and sustainability - brands such as GIBSS, CCBA Designs for Forbes Marshall Green Field, INI Design Studio for JSW Centre and JMA Design Co for The Perch, among others.