‘We must strive to create homes and not just build houses’

The progressive minds of the real estate industry came together to pave a road map to sustainable and technologically driven spaces. It was a summit packed with knowledge, industry insight and offered a holistic view and understanding of the entire ecosystem, across the globe. The summit stood witness to the coming together of great minds and awarding some of the greatest projects, the Smart Green Summit & Awards was held today at Taj Diplomatic Enclave, New Delhi.

The Summit included multi-faceted conference where International and National Keynotes speakers shared their expertise to an audience of over 500 top notch developers, architects, designers, government officials, sustainable experts, and other architecture and design related executives who have dedicatedly worked towards creating sustainable living places. Pioneers like Rahul Kadri, Frven Lim, and Chin Theo Chong, Manit Rastogi, Pradeep Nair, Prof. Robin Drogemuller, Martha Thorne, Angelene Chan, Ar K Jaisim, Boman Irani, Chhavi Rajawat, Dr Prabhat Rahangdale, O.P. Agarwal ,Paritosh Gupta, Prem Chandavarkar,, Prof. Dr. P.S.N. Rao , Sreeram Ananthasayanam, Sanjay Seth, Satish Gokhale shed light on design, technology, material and policy segments of the space.

Mr. Manit Rastogi, Founder Partner, Morphogenesis, India said, “We must look in our own industrious past to cull out a better future”. Mr. Rahul Kadri, principal architect, IM Kadri Architects remarked that, “Incredulous master-plans and a rigid policy framework limits the effective planning and diversification of living places, suitable to the need to present hour. Too much centralized planning and the general attitude of urban planning in India does not work for the many millions”.

Mr. Venkat Subramanian, Regional CEO- Construction Products India & Managing Director- Gyproc India gave the welcome address to start the Summit. Mr. Subramanian expressed his pleasure at presenting the 3^rd Smart Green Summit & Awards, in association with the Economic Times. He said,” The Smart Green Summit and Awards, reflects our deep commitment to the green cause through recognizing green crusaders and helping channelize the fraternity’s collective and collaborative efforts, to ensure the future of habitat is in safe hands”. He spoke about the agenda and mentioned the interesting lineup of speakers divided in four segments – Design, Technology, Material and Policy.

The Vote of thanks was given by A R Unnikrishnan, Director – sales and marketing, Saint Gobain India Pvt Ltd – Glass Business. He said, ”As we come to the last leg of the summit it is our pleasure to thank all those involved and all the participants, eminent speakers, expert jury members and the advisory body.” He added,” When we were putting the Summit together we wanted to bring the best minds of the ecosystem together and that indeed has given us valuable and deep insight for the future and left us with immense hope and possibilities the future holds. We would like to continue our efforts and revive the Summit again to celebrate the best solutions towards sustainability and smart living”.

The event concluded with awarding some of the most thoughtful and sustainable projects undertaken in this space.

Elaborating on the summit and awards, Mr. Deepak Lamba, President – Times Strategic Solutions, said, “We are glad to have been a part of and bring to all this great summit that has brought together the crusaders of sustainability under one roof. Great solutions towards sustainable living has emanated from the Summit and passionate efforts have been recognized and awarded. We wish to take the narrative further and continue to strive for sustainability”.

List of Advisory Board members for the Summit:

About ET Edge

Times Strategic Solutions Ltd., functional under the brand name ET Edge, is an Economic Times initiative founded to empower multiple industries and segments by sharing critical business knowledge through strategic conferences and summits. Encompassing the Indian business vista, ET Edge strives to bring together visionaries and key leaders on its knowledge platforms to create social and business ecology conducive to the positive changes required by the industry. The main aim of this initiative is to channel global business intelligence through summits and conferences in overarching lectures, hands-on workshops, panels, round tables and case studies.