Buildings have an important role in mitigating, adapting, and developing resilience toward climate change. While green buildings help reduce construction’s detrimental impact on the environment, the real-estate market and select industry stakeholders remain unconvinced regarding the monetary returns of investment through building resource efficiency. Life cycle cost (LCC) assessment is an important tool used by professionals globally to assess the economic feasibility of green buildings over their service life. In India, LCC studies have been adopted for private-sector residential buildings. Moreover, municipal bodies have incentivized green buildings for private developers to offset any incremental initial cost. However, LCC calculation is yet to become mainstream within the public procurement system for institutional buildings in India. Considering that building owners and occupants would accrue any operational cost benefits of green buildings, this work aims to address issues regarding cost barriers for mainstreaming the LCC of green and sustainable institutional buildings in India. Indian public-sector organizations such as the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) have had a long-term financial interest in property, own large portfolios, and are committed to delivering a project’s best value to their clients. Accordingly, actual data from CPWD buildings and developing factors were used to create useful scenarios for future decisions based on the LCC of the buildings. Three GRIHA-rated CPWD projects were selected as case studies to investigate their LCCs. Results indicated that despite initial incremental expenditure, all the projects showed significant net savings at the end of 25 years. LCC comparison enables decision making for buildings with equal performances, while in the case of varying performances, LCC techniques relate the total LCC to identifiable units of performance to enable decisions.

Green building rating systems are effective for implementing climate change mitigation strategies. GRIHA facilitates implementation of relevant policies of the Government of India, and embeds climate adaptation measures within the design, construction and operational phases of building project development. 17 States provide incentives at municipal levels to projects that certify with GRIHA rating. ClimateSMART Cities Assessment Framework (CSCAF), which is a major culmination of Government of India schemes, provides for implementation of energy efficiency and green buildings through adoption and incentivisation of green building rating systems. However, only 25/100 smart city proposals have included green building rating systems to achieve essential goals. Based on feedback from certification agencies, project proponents, and government officials, there is need for information dissemination and guidance on institutional mechanisms for incentivising green rated projects at the local level. This paper examines existing institutional mechanisms for incentivising GRIHA rated projects, and provides recommendations for municipal bodies to meet relevant CSCAF requirements.