How 'unGreen' our homes can be?  When we wanted to build our house in Bangalore in 2002, we had a problem on hand: We were short of funds.  My wife, Radha, took it up as a challenge to build a home at Rs.350/- per square foot as against the market norm of about Rs.800/- per sq.ft. for a standard house.  She, being an environment-sensitive architect, set out and discovered many structural elements such as pillar less construction, materials such as Soil Stabilised mud blocks, low energy development techniques such as use of less cement and steel. We also discovered Biodiversity Conservation India Limited, Bangalore, India.

We almost ended up buying a home in BCIL's TransIndus. We had to decide not to buy from them only because it was a bit too far for the comfort of our large family. The distance couldn't have been manageable without two cars at that time.  As fate would have it, we ended up meeting Mr. Hariharan, BCIL's CEO, about a year after we finished building our home.  We were involved with his organization for the past few years and is still involved in our own little ways.  Million Seed Balls is our innovation contribution.

Radha edits the Xover Environment Magazine today. I am the mentor for their Green Idea Lab.  We redid their website and continue to offer strategic ideas on marketing and innovation, particularly in the search marketing and web marketing space.  Mr. Hariharan and his work inspired us to step out of mainstream and explore alternate life style. We exited Bangalore and live outside Coimbatore.  Our children do home schooling. We got rid of our car and use public transportation.  We use the Internet to reach out to people.

BCIL is getting plenty of press coverage of late, justifiably so. It has demonstrated its abilities to mainstream sustainability. Townsend is one such demonstration. T-Zed, Whitefield, Bangalore was its defining moment with over 2,000 tonnes of CO2  savings during the process of construction. With four new projects, Gaia, Red Earth, Collective, and Little Acre, the organization is attempting to push the envelope on green building technologies.

Today, we no more own the house that eventually got constructed at less than Rs.350/- per sq.ft., thanks to help from green technology.  Nevertheless, Eswar's Den, the house that we built, turned out to be our biggest blessing in the material sense of the world.  The money that we received from the sale of the house enabled us to boldly plunge into a more eco-friendly lifestyle.

After the wonderful education we got from working alongside BCIL, today Radha feels that our next home would be lot more earth friendly if and when we get an opportunity to build.  Education begins right here, at home, isn't it?

have fun innovating,
k.m.e.