Indian Green
Haworth Pune goes for sustainability in building and product

by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

Summary: Consumer demand, coupled with stiff import and export taxes in India, convinced office systems furniture manufacturer Haworth that they needed a manufacturing and showroom facility in Pune, India. Located less than 100 miles from Mumbai, Pune is becoming an IT and automotive metropolis. “India’s a very fast growing market, so we looked at that and said we could serve our customers better by making that product in India to serve the Indian market,” says Mitch Boucher, PE, LEED-AP, project manager for Haworth’s facilities design and management division.

To meet their business needs in India, Haworth worked with Indian architect Rajiv Sapre with Dandekar Associates to design a 50,000-square-foot manufacturing plant and adjoining 7,800-square-foot showroom. Because of the harsh Indian climate, sustainability—water conservation, in particular—was a major consideration from the very beginning.

Designing for the site
“They only get rain three months out of the year,” explains Boucher. “That charges their aquifer for six months out. Here in Michigan, we get rain off and on to the tune of about 35 inches a year, but it’s spread throughout the year. In India, they get 30 inches of rain per month in June, July, and August, and less than a half an inch of rain in the other months.” For the remaining months, says Boucher, they have to truck in water for basic needs. That need led to some strict conservation guidelines. All faucets and toilets are low-flow and sensor-operated. The graywater that goes down the drain is filtered and held in a tank for the low-maintenance landscaping on site. Boucher notes that absolutely no potable water is used for landscaping. Their efforts reduced water use by 40 percent over LEED® criteria and 57 percent over the EPAct value.

Intense heat is another environmental concern in Pune. Boucher says that to reduce the cooling load and improve energy and water efficiency, their structure is a “big, thick thermal-mass shell of a building that keeps that intense Indian sun out.” The masonry wall is covered with plaster and concrete and is at a minimum 16 inches thick.

One interesting challenge to building in Pune was the unreliability of electricity. Boucher reports that Thursdays are called manufacturing holidays because the power might be on or it might be off. “It went off and on all the time, whether Thursday or not,” he says. “One of our goals is to become a sustainable company so there are a lot of things throughout that building and the site that are sustainable. Because of the [unreliable] electric power, that entire manufacturing plant is lit by daylight.” The manufacturing plant has skylights throughout, which allows the lighting to remain off throughout the day. In addition, the facility is naturally ventilated to provide health and performance protection.

Boucher says that when the design discussions turned to construction waste, they were surprised to learn that in India it’s common to write into a contract that construction waste will not exceed 2 percent. “It would be a business waste,” he explains. Their mindset is: “Why would you even design or work to have any more than that? They don’t have a lot of landfills over there, so that’s not part of their vernacular or construction business.” He notes that they even would break down the wooden scaffolding at the end of a job and take it to the next site for set up.

Building for reuse
Haworth’s approach to sustainability lies not just in its buildings, but in its manufacturing processes and product. Although they do have products made from recycled materials and one interior wall system “that is so sustainable you can eat it,” Haworth believes strongly in the power of their product to eliminate waste. “People can build their offices with moveable walls and make conference rooms where they need [them] … then, when the business reconfigures, those office systems can reconfigure and that doesn’t cause an unsustainable process or a waste or a big environmental footprint.” As an example, the Pune showroom offices changed significantly between plan and occupation. According to Boucher, the showroom facility was originally planned as half showroom and half office. “Once the product mix and the business drivers for the plant got settled, they changed that office occupancy from 14 up to 23, so we had to modify the office layout to meet a different occupancy and we were able to do that fine,” he says.

“The analogy that I always talk about is gypsum,” he continues. “It’s a natural material that’s come a long way. You can get recycled gypsum where they take the paper off and re-use the gypsum. You can actually get paperless gypsum now, but if every time you reconfigure an office you’re tearing the gypsum down and sending it off to be recycled you’re wasting resources. It’s like driving five miles under the speed limit when you’re lost—you’re getting good mileage, but still wasting gas.”

Although the Pune facility was completed in 2006, in December 2007 Haworth was notified that their showroom achieved LEED Gold certification, only the second in the country. Although the manufacturing portion of the facility didn’t aim for LEED, sustainability was a concern throughout the project, as evidenced by its features. “Our Pune showroom LEED certification confirms that our commitment to sustainability is universal yet tailored to each specific site,” said Franco Bianchi, Haworth president and CEO. “It is important for us to serve our customers effectively in this part of the world, yet we need to do so with as light an environmental footprint as possible. Pune shows we are dedicated to ‘walking the talk’ in North America and beyond.”