Profile of BCIL and its CEO

1. Tell us a little about your background -- your childhood, your educational qualifications and your first job.

I come from a modest middle class background with my early years spent in Bangalore foraging libraries for all that I could read on anything that took my interest. I qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1981 but moved away to become a financial journalist for the next 2 ½ years. I was fortunate to secure a place for my Masters in econometrics.

I returned home to work on development economics and spent time with many voluntary organizations in Aurangabad [Maha], Visakhapatnam [AP], Jhansi [MP], Palamu [Bihar], Ganganagar (Rajasthan) and Dehradun [then NE UP, now Uttarakhand]. I worked on rehab plans after the Uttarkashi earthquake in the Garhwal region. Before moving on to work on water and watershed systems with devices that were mechanical energy oriented – water-based flour mills, hydrams for lift irrigation, micromini hydel power units, and so on.

2. Give us a brief sketch of your career in the industry / industries and the company / companies you worked with, before you founded your own company.

A brief 5-month stint as a tax practitioner after qualifying as a CA, then as a financial journalist in Financial Express, Free Press Journal and then in The Times of India, Bombay. Was associated with The Action Research Unit, Delhi, in the late ‘eighties before co-founding The Academy for Mountain Environics in 1991 at Dehradun. Four years after, I moved on from Donor-funded models of the AME to create BCIL in 1995 as an enterprise that had as its central agenda, sustainable development of water, energy and building practices.

3. When did you discover your sensitivity towards environment?

Having to deal with over 800 human bodies after the Uttarkashi earthquake with the challenges of cremating them (not burying them) in the winter of 1991 with incessant rains that made the task harder laid the seed in me of having to take on challenges that put a human face to development and quality of life.

The inequity of life where the poor pay more for essential things in life like water and poor deepened my resolve to work toward technologies and solutions in urban and rural eco systems that could reduce our eco footprint while enhancing quality of life.

4. When did you decide to establish BCIL? What was the purpose / vision / mission?

BCIL was born in 1994 with the twin planks of [a] water and energy technologies improving Quality of Life, while [b] such Technologies had to be combined with an Enterprise that could push Conservation values without compromise on everyday living and lifestyles.

The purpose of BCIL is essentially to mainstream sustainability – which means taking what are called ‘alternate’ technologies and establishing these are cutting-edge systems needed in the marketplace. Its vision is to make an impact with no impact at all, or to be able to tell people: “We will care for the world so much that you don’t have to.” This means not judging urban lifestyles but complimenting it with softer eco footprints.

5. Was it a struggle -- what disappointments did you have to cope with?

It was not a struggle, it was a nightmare! Not one of the key resource persons who helped us start BCIL continues to be with us today. We spent nearly four years failing to deliver. We failed to understand simple needs of regulation and approvals. We failed to see that customer needs of timely and efficient delivery are consciously met. We didn’t know how to build systems and process. We worked like corner-store entrepreneurs. We lost five years in just building our first project. We had many unhappy customers who said, “They are a bunch of nice guys but don’t know how to deliver.”

Over the last seven years from 2000, we have learnt the hard way over five more projects that we have created. We lost monies in the early years, but kept out clients. But we have now understood that sustainability is only another face of good, efficient management. Today, as an organization, we are about 100 strong, growing to be 200 in this year. The disappointments are behind us. The depth of management we have created has now ensured that we de-risk our processes. In all this, we have not lost sight of the need for pioneering and pro-typing. This is the soul of BCIL.

5. Can you tell me more about BCIL and what it does today?

If you check our website, you will understand much more about BCIL. We are today doing residential projects which offer affordable housing for the middle and upper middle class segments (from Rs 3.5 million to Rs 5 million a house with the best of luxuries) and social housing for industrial workers (from Rs 1.3 million to Rs 2 million a house).

We are creating to destinations for responsible tourism – at Goa and Coorg, which will be the first of a series of such destinations that celebrate biodiversity in India and elsewhere in the world. We will be creating energy-efficient office spaces and shopping malls in Bangalore and elsewhere in India in years ahead, that will help office blocks get air-conditioning and every other facility, but with a softer eco-footprint and at lower financial costs of maintenance. BCIL does not value judge urban lifestyles. We provide the same services that a regular building does but in a way that is sustainably developed.

6. How is BCIL different from the other players in the real- estate industry? Can you give us examples of how a BCIL Property will be different from any other property?

How is BCIL different? …. As a house owner, you spend 40% less on energy bills every month. In many of our campus creations, you don’t need water supply, power supply and sewerage board from the outside. We achieve 100% autonomy in these areas for the home owners. Our air conditioning is ozone-friendly – no CFC or HCFC. It is not ‘air-conditioning’ the way the world knows it; it is superior in that it keeps your room warm when cold outside, and vice versa. But we continue to call it air-conditioning since the marketplace understands this easily.

We use no bricks or clay tiles or clay blocks which need precious top soil for production. We use only 20% concrete blocks. We are one of the largest makers of soil stabilized blocks in India now; these are made out of the earth that we excavate for our buildings. We use energy-efficient pre-fabricated systems for walls and roofs. We don’t use ceramic tiles.

We don’t use anything but water conserving taps in our homes which save you up to 35,000 ltrs every year in every house! We use only non-toxic paints - no chemical-based paints. All our waste water is treated fully and are used for our flush tanks and gardens. We don’t use high energy incandescent bulbs and tube lights. We use only CFLs and LEDs in all homes and external spaces. We use only sustainably harvested wood for our houses. – either plantation or non-forest timber.

All our gardens are chemical-free with a combination of micro-irrigation systems, moisture retention plans that ensure reduced water use for soil beds; we are the first to introduce Zero Food Miles Programs which help you get greens, gourds, legumes, tubers and corn [we can’t grow paddy and wheat in small patches of city lands!] that ensure that the vegetable you eat does not travel many miles to reach you.
All our homes are either carbon-neutral or carbon-positive and therefore gain ‘carbon credits’ – this means a tangible, financial benefit for our home-owners on the annual carbon emission reduction. There is much more but this will suffice.

7. What is your advice to all those who want to build Green Homes? What are some of the guidelines / tips that home buyers can implement?

All that we do is very doable for every other builder anywhere in the world. Even if you are building a single home for yourself, you can achieve many of these planet-sensitive and comfort-offering values. Of course, you need professionals who have worked in these areas. When you build please think of a house or a building as an energy system. Remember, each material that you use is living, breathing, expanding, contracting. If you understood the physics of material, water and energy well, you can build a green home easily!

8. When presented with a new challenge, how do you set about the task? What is the kind of planning / preparation involved?

Planning is the key to all good work. 60% of our work is in detailed planning and preparation. We work with many numbers of schedules that we create, re-write, monitor and re-evaluate. This is all about management and constant telling and listening. This is about working as a team; this is about alerting ourselves to tasks on a daily, weekly basis. This is about anticipation of every likely failure in the process of doing.

9. What qualities set apart success stories like yours, from the others who do not really make it?

You must be obstinate - to believe in what you are doing – though that seems cliched. You must know how to justify and create solutions for what you think is right. You must know how money behaves and people behave! The cost of people is not their compensations, but of having them! How can you manage yourself and them well. Everything you do must clearly come from a context of nothing that you do for the sake of doing, and surely not for the sake of reward. Everything you do must have a story that you can tell your grandchildren some day!

10. What kind of criticism have you faced in the course of your career, and how have you learned to deal with it?

I have been ‘written off’ for having tried what people said are utterly foolish things. People have left the organization because of what they perceived as my obstinacy. It is only if you think you can, you can, they say – how true! I have learnt from others. I have learnt from workers on the field – in projects, in farm lands, in watersheds. I have worked in about 14 districts of India in my mid-career. I have met many people who have learnt to obey and therefore learnt to command. I have learnt, humility is as much necessary as is confidence. In the worst of times, I have told myself that I am living up to a higher value and that god or destiny will reward and stand by us.

11. Did you have a mentor, and if so, how did he/ she inspire you to steer your career in the right direction?

I had an opportunity to work with one mentor 26 years ago. God bless him. He is still around and writes a ‘Sunday column’ for Indian Express. His name is TJS George. I learnt from him that the best way to learn is to be just dumped into a task with no one to help you solve it -- and you will solve it. He said to me one day, “Your voice, however young you are, is as important as anyone else’s.” And I have always spoken since then my mind. I learnt that my opinion counts as much as that of any other person, young or old. I learnt that whatever one does, you have to learn to be the best in that area of work.

There are many others who inspired, with the sheer dedication that they brought to their work – Aldo Leopold [Sand Almanac County], Rachel Carson [Silent Spring], David Thoreau…….. and among those living legends of India, Anna Hazare, Dr.Mishra who worked on the Chilka Lake in Orissa, Sreedhar who champions many causes even today across India.

12. How has your career impacted your personal life? Do you feel like you've had to sacrifice a few personal pleasures in favor of your job?

If at all, it has impacted only hugely positively. I enjoy my work day so much that I feel guilty collecting a salary at the end of every month. How can anyone pay you for what you enjoy doing? There are low moments, of course. But like Gandhiji said, ‘You cannot measure a person by his or her moments of greatness. But only by the amount of dust his feet have collected over time. There lies the secret of all good work.’

13. What makes BCIL a great organization to work for?

Because it is not a company. Because it is an institution which is constantly aware of the legacy it has to leave behind for others to pursue. Because most of them here are imbued by a sense of the greater value, beyond commerce and their own careers. There are of course a few to whom it is just a job. But we have seen at BCIL that such people move on. Because, either they don’t understand the cause very well [which means we have failed somewhere], or they are here only for a job [but that number is very few]. We have champions at BCIL, many of them, who have stayed more than a decade and continue to enjoy doing what they are doing.

14. Where do you see BCIL, 5 years from now?

5 years from now, BCIL will have made strategic steps in being the leader in bridging social, environment and technological divides and barriers in urban and rural housing and infrastructure. The company will have emerged as path-breakers in:

1. Setting and achieving in all their projects, the optimal social and environmental standards in building design and implementation process, and being financially prudent in achieving these norms

2. Having broken the economic and technological barriers on affordability to aesthetic, environmentally-sound housing – through innovative financial instruments and appropriate changes to housing policy and finance instruments

3. Being the leader-entrepreneur in marketing and consulting this information, technology and process widely within India and also regionally

4. Being recognized globally as an evolving ‘think-tank’ and ‘provider’ of innovative projects and ideas.

15. What tips do you have for today's Architects / Engineers who are looking at Green Architecture as a good career opportunity?

I have often told many engineers and architects that they should not just limit themselves to reading their own subject. They must go beyond to understand how the world works, how nature works. To look at a building as an energy system; to understand what plugs in and plugs out of every building and how you can be responsible for all of it. It is like your human body. It needs energy, and water and puts out waste. All have to be handled effectively, efficiently. They should not look for a job. It won’t help. They should be looking to see what they want to achieve in the long term for themselves. Like my mentor told me : how can you be the best at what you do, whatever that is.

16. A few words on your family and their profession/s.

We are a small family of wife, son and a dog who has been with us for 14 years now. Prof Kanchan Kaur teaches journalism as the dean of a prestigious college of journalism and new media. Son Nirvikalpa stepped out of school and refused to study beyond. He worked with 2 NGOs in Andhra and trained himself to make films. He is now studying at a film academy and is hoping to be a documentary film-maker recording different expressions of India and its face of development.