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Infosys - Green Building Rating

Infosys - Green Building Rating

The LEED Green Building Rating System is a globally accepted benchmark for design, construction, and operation of high-performance green buildings. Infosys has the largest building area as LEED Platinum certified in the IT office space category. To make its campuses sustainable and resource efficient, Infosys has followed a two pronged strategy since 2008 - to design new buildings to the highest energy efficiency standards and implement deep retrofits in old buildings. During the journey towards LEED certification, Infosys demonstrated success and leadership in implementing sustainable operations strategies on existing buildings. The point of greening existing buildings was to positively impact the environment through efficient operations.

All our buildings follow the highest standards of resource efficiency resulting in minimum impact to the environment. In the process, we also aim to achieve the highest level of green building certification. our new buildings in Hyderabad were awarded the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification from the USGBC. We have also received the LEED Platinum Existing Building certification for our campuses in Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai. With LEED Platinum & GRIHA- 5 Star we are now spanning a total area of 25.08 million sq ft. An additional 4.3 million sq ft of our ongoing projects is currently under green building certification.

For all existing buildings, efficiency improvements were achieved through large-scale retrofit projects. This included office buildings, food courts, and training centers, hostels, and sports arenas across locations. Deep retrofits were undertaken in energy-intensive areas. Major interventions included complete re-engineering of chiller plants, air handling units, building management system (BMS) retrofit, UPS retrofit, lighting retrofit, etc. These retrofits were completed within a short duration with effective project management, communication, and coordination between multiple teams, including operations, maintenance, IT, and others.

The review parameters in the certification process critically examine the following:

  • Location and Transportation Performance
  • Sustainable Sites (Rainwater Management, Heat island reduction, Light pollution reduction and Site Management)
  • Water Efficiency
  • Energy and Atmosphere (Energy Efficiency Best Management Practices, Fundamental Refrigerant Management, Energy Performance, Enhanced Refrigerant Management and Grid Harmonization)
  • Materials and Resources (Purchasing Policy, Facilities Maintenance and Renovations Policy, Waste Performance, Purchasing)
  • Indoor Environmental Quality (Minimum Indoor Air quality, environmental tobacco smoke control, Green Cleaning Policy, Indoor Environmental Quality Performance, Green Cleaning, Integrated Pest Management)
  • Innovation

Some of the key features that contributed to this accreditation are:

Water efficiency: Infosys completed the implementation of ground water injection wells, smart water meters were installed along with instituting rooftop rainwater harvesting as well as installation of water efficient plumbing fixtures. We also have advanced technology sewage treatment plants with automation and ensure the effective reuse of treated wastewater within the campuses. All these efforts have reduced our per capita freshwater consumption significantly. The overall effort for water sustainability helped in reducing per capita fresh water consumption by 63.75%. Wastewater is treated in sewage treatment plants across our campuses in some of our leased buildings and an insignificant quantity of sewage is released into municipal sewage systems for further treatment.

Renewable Energy: The company has installed a total capacity of about 60 MW of solar PV across Infosys, including rooftop and ground-mounted systems. We continue to pursue green power purchase from third-party power producers and work with governments to enable favorable policies for scaling up green power by corporates in India. 44.3% Of total electricity procured for India operations from renewable sources.

Energy Efficiency: Our enterprise-level retrofit program transforms existing buildings into highly efficient ones. We have been successfully able to reduce our per capita electricity consumption significantly over the years and are now at a stage where we will need to sustain at the existing levels. Currently 33.5 MW reduction is achieved in connected load, due to the energy retrofits. Our per capita electricity consumption has dropped by 55.06% versus 2008 levels.

The Mysuru campus has a central Command Center for Integrated Building Management System (IBMS) that helps with remote energy performance management to ensure efficient operation of buildings. Smart automation has enabled remote monitoring, control and optimization of operations across 150 buildings spanning 30 million sq ft of space. Controllers and sensors ensure building systems like air conditioning operate in an autopilot mode with in-built scheduling and energy-saving algorithms, providing real-time data, alerts and diagnostics at the system and the equipment levels.

Infosys was able to meet all the pre-requisites as well as demonstrate compliance with internal sustainability policies and USGBC requirements. Over the years, Infosys has demonstrated leadership in implementing innovative technologies and practices to foster sustainability, leading to high operational efficiency while minimizing environmental impacts.