Green and growing

Anup Mathew, senior VP, Godrej Construction, is encouraging the concept of responsible construction in more ways than one

- Anup Mathew senior VP, Godrej Construction

What are some of the practices adopted before going 100% green?

Godrej has always believed in the concept of focusing on sustainable development and whether it’s in our products or services, our approach has always been to focus on developing products which are sustainable.

We are not 100% green in the true sense that there are still areas we need to work on, but in certain places we have developed a concept and gone 100%. In our green buildings, we have green power in all the common areas and one of our RMC plants also has green power.

Recently Tata Power, Adani and others now provide us with green energy, so that we don’t have to change the infrastructure.

I believe you are also working closely with some government projects in Mumbai?

As an organisation, we are committed to sustainable development, but when one executes projects for oneself there are limitations, but there is an opportunity when we sell construction materials beyond our fence. In that sense, infrastructure projects and real estate developments were opportunities where we could provide sustainable construction materials. So we began with ready mix concrete.

We are one of the early adopters of commercial RMC in the country, and with growth has come the opportunity to tap infrastructure projects. This has brought us in contact with government authorities, and consultants appointed by the government or municipal corporations who are looking into how recycled concrete materials can be integrated into the design while developing a product. Let me give you an example of the Coastal Road project. Large projects such as these require large number of concrete products to make culverts and other structures. We have been talking to the authorities to see if we can integrate recycled concrete in the design process, which has been derived from our own project sites and been pulverised.