International Research Journal of Social Sciences______________________________________ ISSN 2319–3565 Vol. 4(4), 23-33, April (2015) Int. Res. J. Social Sci. International Science Congress Association 23 Adoption of Green Building Concept by Selected Builders of Vadodara City in Selected Housing Colonies Constructed by Them Shilpi Saraswat and Maneesha Shukul Department of Family and Community Resource Management, Faculty of Family and Community Sciences, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, INDIA Available online at: www.isca.in Received 30 th December 2014, revised 9 th February 2015, accepted 11 th March 2015 Abstract Buildings have major environmental impacts over their life cycle. Hence, there is a need to design and construct a green building which minimizes the issues related to environment deteriotion due to construction of buildings. A green building uses less energy, water and natural resources. It generates less waste and provides a healthy living environment for the occupants. The construction industry is a larger user of natural resources, therefore there is a need to design building with low environmental impacts. Green buildings are upcoming concept and the need for present day construction industry, so as to have sustainable development. It has been observed that Vadodara city has witnesses a remarkable growth in the construction of commercial as well as residential sectors. The concept of green building has been more widely adopted in commercial sectors rather than residential sectors. Hence, a study was conducted to find out the opinion of the builders regarding adoption of green building concept in their construction of residential sectors, reasons for adopting the green building concept and the barriers faced in adopting the same. The data were gathered through a questionnaire from a sample of 75 builders through convenience sampling. Descriptive and relational statistics was used for presenting results. The findings of the study revealed that majority of the builders were middle aged and their professional association was the main source of information about green buildings. More than one half of the builders had low extent of exposure to various sources of information. Environmental aspects were the reason as stated by builders behind the adoption of green building design and construction. Majority of the builders faced lack of technical knowledge of the project team, contractors and clerk and lack of interest in implementing green building concept as high extent of barrier in adopting green building design and construction. Majority of the builders had somewhat favourable opinion regarding green building. A significant relationship was found between reasons for adopting green building design and construction by the builders and opinion of builders regarding the same. The builders can be made aware through an educational programmegiven by the educational institution about the impact of the buildings on the health of the occupants and to construct a building which incorporates features of green building. Keywords: Green building, opinion of builders. Introduction India’s economic development propelled by rapid industrial growth and urbanization is causing environmental problems that have local, regional and global significance 1 . Changes brought by the Industrial Revolution (1750-1850) in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on human society. Solutions of eradicating poverty, food security, living standards, etc. in the modern concept of economic development but on the other hand it is observed that the environment is paying the price for it 2 . The cumulative effects of the degradation of the Earth’s natural environment have increased the scale of the sustainable development challenge enormously. It is evident that that human activity is causing an irreversible damage to the global environment 3 , which has adverse impact on the quality of life of future generations 4 . Hence, the concern for sustainability is even more in recent times. Ancient Indians were much aware about the ecology and sustainability. It helps in solving specific environmental problems and the modern principles of sustainability were adopted at that time. But fortunately those golden principles laid have been forgotten 5 . Construction industry is growing rapidly all over the world. Buildings have major environmental impacts over their entire life cycle which ranges from their designing, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation and deconstruction 6 . Resources such as ground cover, forests, water, and energy are depleted to give way to buildings. The construction business accounts for approximately 45-50 percent of comprehensive power consumption, just about 50 percent of all-inclusive water usage, and more or less 60 percent of thetotal usage of unprocessed or raw materials. Alternatively, the construction sector chips in 23 percent of atmospheric contamination, 50 percent of climate change gases, 40 percent of drinking water contamination, in addition to an added 50 percent of landfill