Reall begin climate-smart project in India

Working with our partner, Janaadhar, the Sanand Project will deliver over 800, energy efficient, houses in 2024. That means new, safe and secure housing for around 2,800 people in Ahmedabad – the second largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat.

Aligned with Janaadhar’s mission to build high-quality, affordable homes in urban India, many of the houses we build in the Sanand Project will be designed to be affordable by the bottom 40% of India’s income pyramid.

Mr. Arvind Bhatnagar, COO of Janaadhar says:

“We’re committed to building low-cost, high-quality housing that is sustainable and affordable. Developments that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient are a necessity for improving the quality of life. To achieve this, we will design the Sanand Project while maintaining energy, water and material efficiencies and differentiating the project through EDGE certification.”

What is EDGE certification?

One of the key tools that Reall are using in our efforts to address the climate crisis through affordable housing is the EDGE tool and certification system that has been developed by IFC.

EDGE supports the delivery of greener buildings by helping housing developers make better decisions early on in the project process, quantifying improvements and creating an opportunity to certify these.

The EDGE tool helps developers identify cost-effective measures that can improve energy and water efficiency, and reduce embodied energy in the materials used to construct buildings. This contributes to emissions mitigation by reducing the carbon emissions produced during building construction and occupancy. It also contributes to developing resilience in communities to the effects of climate change, for example by reducing demand on stretched water resources.

Achieving at least 20% improvements across energy efficiency, water efficiency and embodied energy in materials (against a local base-case) means that a building can be EDGE-certified.

Tom Woodward, Climate Lead at Reall, says:

œThe Sanand project will deliver many affordable and EDGE-certified homes, marking another important step in our collective work to transform local markets through climate-smart, truly affordable housing. 

Read more

• Read our Climate Change Report (PDF, 2 pages, 200KB)
• Make an impact by investing in our work
• Find out about Reall’s affordable housing projects on our Data Dashboard
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