Green Construction in India: Practices, Constraints and Opportunities for Sustainable Development

Abstract

Green construction has become an important pathway for reducing the environmental pressures associated with the expanding built environment. In India, the transition is supported by building-energy regulation, voluntary green-building rating systems and growing attention to resource efficiency, yet implementation remains uneven. This study examines green construction in India through three analytical dimensions: practices, constraints and opportunities for sustainable development. A qualitative descriptive research design based exclusively on secondary documentary evidence was adopted. Government policy and regulatory documents, Indian green-building frameworks, peer-reviewed studies and selected international evidence were purposively reviewed and thematically analysed. The analysis identifies six interconnected practice areas: energy efficiency, water conservation, sustainable materials, construction and demolition waste management, renewable-energy integration, and lifecycle-oriented design and operation. Documented constraints cluster around economic and financial conditions, regulatory implementation, organisational capability and skills, technology and material availability, and market and supply-chain conditions. The findings indicate that India's principal challenge is not the absence of sustainability frameworks but the translation of these frameworks into consistent project-level and lifecycle performance. The study identifies implementation-oriented opportunities in green finance, skills development, sustainable procurement, circular construction, supply-chain capability and performance-based assessment. The paper contributes a structured secondary-data synthesis of the Indian green-construction landscape and identifies priorities for future empirical research.