Saving Energy, Securing India’s Future: The Power of Everyday Choices and Cooler Buildings

On World Energy Savings Day, India must recognise that energy efficiency is not merely a matter of reducing electricity bills. It is a climate imperative, an economic opportunity and an essential investment in a heat-resilient future.

October 21, 2026. By News Bureau

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articles

Anirban Ghosh

Mahindra University

World Energy Savings Day

Renewable energy

Cool roofing solutions

Centre for Sustainability

Solar energy

Clean Energy

India’s development story is also an energy story. From expanding manufacturing and digital infrastructure to improving living standards and building new cities, our aspirations depend on reliable, affordable energy. Yet, as demand grows, so does the challenge of meeting it without intensifying climate change or placing an unsustainable burden on our natural resources.

World Energy Savings Day offers an opportunity to reflect on a simple but powerful proposition: the cleanest unit of energy is often the one we do not need to consume.

The connection between energy consumption and climate change is direct. 74 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the production and use of energy, particularly through the burning of fossil fuels. When we reduce the energy required to deliver a service – lighting a room, cooling a building, manufacturing a product or transporting people – we can reduce emissions, provided the reduction translates into lower fossil-fuel use or cleaner energy demand.

This is particularly relevant for India. We must expand energy access and support economic growth while also reducing the emissions intensity of development. Renewable energy is indispensable to this transition, but generating more clean electricity is only one part of the solution. Using energy intelligently reduces the scale of generation, transmission and storage infrastructure required, eases pressure on the power grid and can lower costs for consumers and businesses.

In other words, energy efficiency and renewable energy are complementary pillars of a credible climate strategy.

One of the most consequential opportunities lies above our heads: on the roofs of our homes, offices, factories, schools, hospitals and commercial buildings.

India is experiencing rapid urbanisation, and its building stock is expected to double in the next three decades. Decisions made today about building materials, orientation, insulation, ventilation and cooling systems will influence energy consumption for decades. Buildings designed without adequate consideration of local climate conditions can lock occupants into high electricity bills and persistent dependence on mechanical cooling.

This challenge is becoming more pressing as heat stress intensifies. Extreme heat affects human health, worker productivity, educational outcomes and the ability of communities to function safely. As temperatures rise, demand for air conditioning and other cooling equipment increases, placing additional pressure on electricity systems – often precisely when people are most vulnerable.

This creates a troubling cycle: higher temperatures increase cooling demand; greater electricity consumption can increase emissions where fossil fuels supply the additional power; and those emissions contribute to further warming. Cool roofing solutions can make a meaningful difference.

These solutions use reflective materials or coatings that absorb less solar radiation and release less heat into the building. By keeping roof surfaces and indoor spaces cooler, they can reduce cooling requirements, improve thermal comfort and lower electricity consumption. In densely built urban areas, concrete surfaces, roads and conventional roofs absorb and retain heat, contributing to the urban heat island effect, in which cities become warmer than surrounding rural areas. Extensive use of appropriately designed cool roofs, alongside trees, shaded streets, green spaces and other heat-sensitive urban design measures, can help moderate this effect.

Cool roofing solutions can be a cost-effective component of a broader heat-resilience strategy, particularly for low-income housing, schools, healthcare facilities and industrial workplaces where excessive indoor temperatures have serious consequences. The opportunity is to move from treating cooling as an equipment purchase to treating it as a design challenge.

Governments and urban local bodies can accelerate adoption through building codes, public procurement, incentives and awareness programmes. Developers and architects can incorporate cool roofs and passive cooling from the outset, when interventions are often less expensive. Businesses can assess their building energy performance, retrofit existing facilities and make energy efficiency a criterion in capital investment decisions.

The Centre for Sustainability at Mahindra University has tested Thermacool, a cool roofing solution, extensively. It is a solution developed by scientists from IIT Bombay. It not only reduced the temperature of the roof surface and the floor below it, but also reduced the temperature of solar panels that were installed on the roof. These results validate the hypothesis that a cool roofing solution reduces air-conditioning loads and also indicate the possibility of increasing solar panel efficiency, making it an essential addition to building design or a retrofit toolkit where both heat stress and rooftop solar panels are rising rapidly.

On World Energy Savings Day, let us move beyond symbolic observance and commit to measurable action. Switch off what is unnecessary, invest in what is efficient, design for the climate we are experiencing, and build for the climate we are likely to face.

- Anirban Ghosh, Professor & Head, Centre for Sustainability, Mahindra University