The Urban Land Institute (ULI) has set a milestone in the Indian real estate landscape with the launch of its first Product Council, which would foster greater sustainability and Environmental, Social, and Governance goals. And it would be the council with a focus on decarbonization through which the future of office spaces in India’s fast-urbanizing cities would get reshaped.
The power-house congregation took place this week in Mumbai, where industry biggies deliberated on the various challenges and opportunities regarding the Indian real estate scenario. Top participants included Gautam Saraf, Managing Director of Mumbai & New Business, Cushman and Wakefield; Quaiser Parvez, CEO of Nucleus Office Parks; and Manasvini Hariharan, Director of ULI India. The experts talked about the ULI perspective related to India, saying that if the sector is to develop on a sustainable basis, there has to be strategic planning with a collaborative approach.
India is at the cusp of unprecedented urbanization, and the lands and properties in the realty sector are set to see massive expansion in the next four to five years. In fact, with such a rapid growth rate, strategic direction is probably necessary in order to ensure that the highest levels of quality and sustainability are present in all the new built-environment projects. ULI’s Product Council will act as a big think piece guiding the industry toward projects that are demand-driven and world-class.
The ULI was founded almost 80 years ago. It is the oldest platform in the world that deals with the built environment; it exists in 86 countries around the globe and has membership totaling more than 45,000 individuals. This is what is special about ULI: it is multidisciplinary, with real estate developers and investors, architects and planners, engineers, lawyers, and media people all in one platform. The possibility of inclusive discussions on how to make decent and sustainable cities is at one’s fingertips within a network like that.
ULI has a string of successes across United States, Europe, and Asia, and entering the Indian market two years back was indicative of a fresh chapter in the organization’s growth. While ULI is already a well-established brand in the built environment across the globe, in India it is still relatively new. In a country, a replicated version of the international success of the international organization is its mission to be tailored so as to address local challenges and opportunities.
“ULI’s plan for India is to replicate its international success locally and at the same time to adapt its mission priorities to India,” says Manasvini Hariharan, Director, ULI India. ULI has identified three key mission priorities to India: decarbonization, housing attainability, and educating the next generation of young leaders. These priorities will go a long way in understanding how ULI can remain engaged in some of the most critical issues that face real estate today.
The new Product Council at its core focuses on decarbonization, which is the process of reducing carbon emissions across the built environment. This now becomes particularly relevant in India, where urbanization has been rapid, associated with equally rapid increases in energy consumption and degradation of the environment. ULI will advocate for the use of energy-efficient technologies and sustainable building practice approaches to gradually make the new development lower in carbon footprint toward supporting India’s broader climate goals.
Another crucial priority area in ULI’s action in India is housing attainability. With the urban population set to grow by leaps and bounds in the coming years, attaining housing which is affordable and reachable is the crying need. ULI efforts in this space will be in the creation of workable housing solutions that are affordable and inclusive, hence creating access to safe and affordable housing for more people in urban centers.
Innovation is another of the pillar on which ULI stands. This basically revolves around the demonstration of different ways of looking at problems. Education of the next generation of young leaders is the third pillar of ULI’s mission in India. Letting the young, dynamic professionals learn and then practice the ways will be the way forward in ULI’s mission of planting heftier leaders in the future regarding matters on the built environment. This pillar on education is key in guaranteeing continuous improvements of the trade as per the market requirements and increasing challenges in environment conservation.
Now, as the Indian real estate sector is going through a big boost, it is the efforts by ULI that can really act as a catalyst to determine the future of the sector. ULI’s Product Council definitely has a high potential for ushering in the required change in the whole process of office space designing, setting up, and operations of such spaces in India by creating an environment of effective engagement among the fraternity and encouraging environment-friendly practices.
The launch of ULI’s first Product Council in India is an organizational milestone, but more importantly, it is a milestone in its own right within India’s broader real estate sector. As ULI inks its journey well into the shores of the country of India and increases the effort toward sustainable real estate, ESG goals, and the next generation of its leaders, it is going to be the guiding force for the country’s real estate toward a more responsible and resilient direction.