Empowering Stakeholders Towards Better Working Conditions Through Green Factories : An Action Research in India

The need of sustainable development is picking up pace, with one of the major concerns being to provide healthy environment for citizens to live and work. The Industrial sector has pursued its manufacturing operations without giving much attention to environmental and health issues. This has resulted in an impact on resources, human health and wellbeing. Thus in this context, Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) has developed green factory rating system which can help address issues like energy efficiency, conservation of natural, betterment of working conditions and enhanced productivity. Its adoption can be accelerated by generating awareness amongst stakeholders of manufacturing sector to voluntarily adopt green practices for their factory buildings. The research brings out the action oriented approach followed to generate awareness amongst stakeholders regarding the green factory rating system with special reference to Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) technologies since it has major impact on the health and productivity of the workers. Also, newer technologies used for IEQ by operational green factories were also studied in detail. Newer technologies employed by existing green factories, as revealed by the study were Building flush out, entryway systems, high efficiency filters and so forth. Taking these as a framework, a training programme was prepared to generate awareness. The training programme, dealt in imparting knowledge on various issues such as sustainable development, green built environment, green factory rating system etc. It consisted of modules assisted with comprehensive tools like presentations, videos, pamphlet, training manual and handouts. The training programme resulted in change in knowledge and perception of stakeholders which was statistically analyzed. This change helped them to understand and appreciate how their practices and preferences in their factory buildings can contribute to good working environment thereby leading to a holistic goal of sustainable development. Thus, such interventions can be taken up at a wider scale to motivate community stakeholders to adopt green building guidelines