Innovation

The Green Public Standard for residential buildings is a new system of certification of houses, which is the Eurasian analogue of international housing certifications, such as LEED, BREEAM, DGNB. It includes all the important criteria for the construction of Green Homes: energy efficiency class, inclusive infrastructure, a high percentage of green areas, and so on. DOM.RF is also introducing a new service which will allow users to fill in an online form and select experts who will assess compliance with sustainability criteria. DOM.RF earns money from the companies who want to conduct certification and from companies who want to get certified. Galina shared with us: "DOM.RF as an operator will receive money from the platform usage and from the fee for certification. The cost of this certification will be much lower than foreign counterparts.” The company has ambitious plans for the future: "There are thoughts about scaling to the EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union) countries at least. "

An internal cross-functional team of experts was formed to take into account the opinions of relevant agencies, businesses, and the expert community during the development process. Specialists from the Ministry of Construction were actively involved in the development of the first draft of the evaluation system. It was decided to make the development process public, which allowed to collect a lot of feedback from various stakeholders across different industries. Galina commented: "We posted a guest project on the RosStandartization website and received about 130 comments from the Central Bank and Sberbank. Sberbank has a lot of lending to developers, so we also received comments from large developers."

At this moment, the system is already launched and the Green Standard for residential buildings is ready. DOM.RF is receiving applications from construction companies in test mode. The company has built a process for evaluating residential homes based on the core 5 criteria, but the team is working hard day-to-day to keep this list growing.

Inspiration

The reasons for the emergence of innovation were external projects that supported the initiative and inspiration of management. In 2018, the Russian government launched the national project "Housing and Urban Environment", which aims to change the face of cities and create comfortable, safe, eco-friendly living conditions for citizens. Management proposed its own initiative, the idea was approved and the team began to develop.

The inspiration for the project came to be as a way of stepping up the development of “green” construction in Russia. It was initially inspired by the need for more comfortable and safe houses for the citizens. That could not have been achieved without taking into consideration the environmental aspects of development. Although “green” houses might be more expensive, people benefit a lot from it, since they will have to spend less money on maintenance in the long-term. That includes reduced prices for utilities, and reduced costs of maintenance. Not only that, but people also need eco-friendly, modern housing options. That is what the developers focused on during the creation of this project. Another reason for the project was raising awareness on the waste management culture, since it is not yet embedded in the modern Russian culture.

One more factor that heavily inspired the developers of the project was the restricted access to LEED and BREEAM. Russia needed a new way of evaluating housing, and that is when the new standard came in handy. The developers now had a much bigger motivation to finish the project as soon as possible, without sacrificing the quality. Galina noted: "Our staff has expanded a lot lately and we now have an experienced team of builders, architects, lawyers and appraisers who work directly with this project." The new reality dictated the new rules which companies had to obey, but DOM.RF employees were eager to face the obstacles and overcome them with great fierceness.

Overall impact

The initiative has three main beneficiaries. We will describe them in the order of obtaining the impact from the project.

The overall effect for construction companies appears at the stage of selling the housing, because the integration of the green standard gives a marketing advantage. Galina commented: “This increases the revenue by about 10%”.

For the people, the effect is not immediately apparent. The longer people will live in these green houses, the more obvious will be the positive effect of reducedes utility costs. “A green home consumes at least 40% less energy”, which obviously decreases the maintenance costs, pointed out Galina.

The society receives the most long-term benefits. More careful operation of utility systems leads to lower costs for major repairs. In addition, more energy-efficient housing reduces resource consumption, and better public spaces improve living standards.

Business benefit

The company hopes that from 2023 the Green House project will become a new and full-fledged direction of the company's business activities. Now the certification system has not been launched yet, that is, DOM.RF is evaluating pilot projects in private, and after evaluation, these houses will receive the first certificates. However the “Green" State Standard has already been enacted. The company hopes that there will be more such houses, thanks to support measures and due to the fact that developers will be interested in this.

The company is receiving a lot of applications on their website from developers who want to receive a green certificate for the homes they are building. Green houses stand out and the population is beginning to understand that they want good houses and a future reduction in utility costs. Even though there are currently not government support measures, demand is forming in this nascent market.

Social and environmental benefit

Green houses are energy efficient, they consume less energy, they have better walls, pipes, windows and all metal structures. Due to the fact that such houses consume less energy, there are fewer heat leaks and the population pays less for utilities.

The state owner of such a house spends less on maintenance: on major repairs. Due to the fact that green houses are energy efficient, it is possible to build more housing in the same infrastructure.

The environmental impact of the initiative is a significant reduction of greenhouse emissions. To evaluate this impact, the company counts greenhouse emissions in CO2. Here it is enough just to estimate at the stage of operation. One of the mandatory Green State Standard criteria, without which one cannot get a certificate, is the energy efficiency class. It must be high or very high. This class is considered under Order 319 of the Ministry of Construction and provides for a reduction in energy consumption at home. A green home consumes at least 40% less energy. That is, it turns out that from one house from 40% to infinity reduction in energy consumption. A green house, consuming much less energy, emits much less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. At the construction stage, some indicators are also laid down that limit the amount of waste and oblige developers to process this waste in some way, that is, in general, less garbage comes out. The quality of life of people improves.

Interview

Galina Smirnova, Senior Analyst, Department of Sustainable Development and International Cooperation