I cam across a question at a environment related website 'What our governements can do to make our living sustainable?' I tried to hunt for an answer ...

Governments can do a lot to make a sustainable environment so do we! But without the co-operation of corporate government & common people sustainable living is not possible. Government can plan, corporation sector can build & advertise and common people can maintain it. It’s just not about money but about willingness of one's. Unfortunately Indian government is lacking in it. Looking at broader prospective they are missing smaller aspects of need of people & environment. There is lot many tiny things which government can do rather than building metros & big roads... City of Bogota is great example for that.

An international city like Mumbai is full of working people who invest most of there time in traffic. Most of them are poor or middleclass. Raising the living doesn’t mean only to build big transportations but it starts from micro level… from homes & apartments.

Mumbai has government official organization (MHADA) who builds low cost residences for low & middle class locality. Most of the times planning of the buildings is done in an order to achieve placement of maximum number of buildings without taking consideration of environmental effects on the structure & users. Buildings are placed at minimum distance of 6 m blocking the air passage of apartments. Of course those structures lack in cross ventilation increasing need of fan & AC resulting growth in electricity consumption. There is no thought given for rain water harvesting or green roofs or even cavity walls, which would in turn reduce the usage of electricity, municipality water usage. In long term the buildings get damaged earlier cause of low maintenance & users over use of the structure (like installing readymade water tanks inside the apartment & lack of open spaces forces users to make use of structure for their recreational facilities). The misuse of structure abases the lifespan of structure. Although MHADA buildings seem cheaper they are not if we see at long term investment. Lack of ventilation & open spaces arises water & garbage collection in low lying areas, thus abject the health of people using the structure & surrounding area.

Whatever the condition described above is not just governments fault alone but resultant of habits of inhabitants too. But governments lack of concern towards the need of people increases these habits. At micro level while designing the residential complexes not only for low or middle class people also for the higher category of housing sufficient amount of open spaces should be provided which is very basic. There should be compulsion towards sustainable designing & planning for private builders & government organizations.

I am here speaking about designing new buildings, but how can we help to convert existing non-sustainable buildings into sustainable green ones?