Policy Update
Saachi Saxena
Background
India’s building sector is moving into a phase of rapid expansion. Rising urbanisation, higher household incomes and growth in commercial activity are increasing the demand for residential and commercial floor space. India’s building sector is moving into a phase of rapid expansion. Rising urbanisation, higher household incomes and growth in commercial activity are increasing the demand for residential and commercial floor space.
NITI Aayog estimates that India’s total building floor space will rise from 17.8 billion square metres in 2020 to 42.5 billion square metres by 2070, indicating that the country’s total building floor space could be around 2.4 times its 2020 level (NITI Aayog, 2026). This projected expansion highlights the importance of improving building efficiency at the design and construction stage, particularly because a substantial share of India’s future building stock is yet to be constructed.
This scale of construction raises an important economic question – not just how much India needs to build, but how efficiently it builds. Buildings are long-term capital assets, and decisions made at the design and construction stage can influence electricity use and operating costs for decades. With such a large share of future buildings still to be constructed, India has an opportunity to address energy inefficiency at the outset rather than bearing the higher costs of correcting it later.
The pressure on electricity demand is already visible. According to the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), residential buildings account for around 75% of electricity consumption in the building sector. Residential electricity consumption increased from approximately 55 TWh in 1996 – 97 to 260 TWh in 2016 – 17, more than quadrupling over two decades. BEE projects residential electricity consumption to reach between 630 and 940 TWh by 2032, with the growing use of room-based air-conditioning identified as an important contributor (BEE, 2026).
Commercial buildings are also becoming an increasingly important part of India’s energy demand. BEE reports that the commercial building sector is expanding at more than 9% annually. Earlier implementation of the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) introduced three levels of energy performance. Compared with a conventional building, an ECBC-compliant building could achieve around 25% energy savings, while ECBC Plus could achieve around 35% and Super ECBC 50% or more (BEE, 2026).
Against this backdrop, the Energy Conservation and Sustainable Building Code (ECSBC) 2024 marks an important shift in India’s approach to building regulation. Developed by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, the code builds upon ECBC 2017 by retaining energy-efficiency requirements while introducing wider sustainability parameters. BEE describes the revision as involving tighter energy-efficiency thresholds and the addition of measures intended to reduce the environmental impact of buildings across their life cycle (BEE, 2024).
The significance of ECSBC, therefore, goes beyond simply reducing electricity consumption. It brings the economics of construction into closer consideration with the longer-term costs of energy, water, materials and building operation. As India’s building stock expands, the choices made today can influence not only environmental outcomes but also the costs of operating buildings in the decades ahead.
Functioning
ECSBC 2024 takes a broader approach to building efficiency by combining baseline energy-performance requirements with higher performance standards and wider sustainability measures.
It introduces three performance levels: ECSBC Compliant, ECSBC Plus and Super ECSBC. ECSBC Compliant establishes the baseline requirements under the code, while ECSBC Plus and Super ECSBC represent progressively higher levels of building performance. However, these requirements become applicable as regulatory requirements only when ECSBC 2024 is adopted by the respective State or Union Territory and incorporated into the applicable building regulations. The code covers commercial buildings or building complexes with a connected load of 100 kW or more, or a contract demand of 120 kVA or more (BEE, 2024).
The code also takes a broader approach. Its provisions cover areas such as sustainable site planning, building envelope, comfort systems and controls, lighting, electrical systems, renewable energy, water management, waste management, indoor environmental quality and overall building performance (BEE, 2024).
One important element is the building envelope, which influences how much heat enters or leaves a building and, in turn, how much energy is needed for cooling or heating. ECSBC therefore includes requirements related to envelope design, glazing and thermal performance, along with standards for mechanical systems. It also sets provisions for lighting, air-conditioning equipment, fans, pumps, chillers, controls, energy monitoring and renewable-energy systems (BEE, 2024).
The sustainability provisions widen this approach further. They include measures for water-efficient systems, wastewater treatment and reuse, rainwater management, waste management and indoor environmental quality. The code also brings sustainable materials and building-system commissioning into the framework (BEE, 2024).
This integrated approach is relevant from a life-cycle-cost perspective. BEE’s earlier ECBC framework explicitly emphasised life-cycle cost alongside energy performance. ECSBC 2024 builds on this idea by bringing sustainability considerations into the same framework, rather than treating energy consumption as a separate technical issue (BEE, 2024).
For residential buildings, the complementary framework is the Eco Niwas Samhita (ENS) 2024, also referred to as the residential ECSBC. BEE’s residential framework focuses particularly on building-envelope performance, including limiting heat gains in cooling-dominated climates and heat losses in heating-dominated climates. It also emphasises natural ventilation and daylighting (BEE, 2026).
The distinction between the commercial and residential frameworks is economically relevant because the two segments have different patterns of energy use. ECSBC focuses on larger commercial buildings with significant energy demand, while the residential framework addresses a sector that already accounts for around three-fourths of electricity consumption in the building sector (BEE, 2026).
Performance
The performance of ECSBC 2024 can be understood at two levels: the efficiency gains built into the standard itself and the extent to which the standard is being adopted and implemented.
At the level of the standard, ECSBC 2024 represents a progression from the earlier ECBC 2017 framework. Under the previous framework, the three performance levels were associated with approximately 25%, 35% and 50% or more energy savings compared with conventional buildings (BEE, 2026). ECSBC 2024 retains this three-tier structure while tightening energy-efficiency requirements and bringing additional sustainability measures into the framework (BEE, 2024). The change therefore raises the performance expectations for buildings that move towards the higher tiers.
The code further translates these expectations into building-specific performance benchmarks. For instance, under the whole-building performance provisions for hot and dry climates, regular-use offices are required to achieve additional energy savings of 14% under ECSBC Plus and 22% under Super ECSBC, relative to an ECSBC-compliant building. For schools and universities, the corresponding requirements are 23% and 34%, while supermarkets have requirements of 27% and 31%, respectively (BEE, 2024). These differences reflect the fact that buildings do not have identical patterns of energy consumption. An office, a school and a supermarket have different operating schedules, occupancy patterns and requirements for lighting and cooling.
The second dimension is the extent of adoption and implementation. At the time of NITI Aayog’s assessment published in 2026, ECSBC 2024 had not yet been adopted by any State or Union Territory. This finding is in the context of the assessment period and not as a statement of the current adoption status. In contrast, the earlier ECBC framework had achieved wider state-level adoption: by December 2024, 25 States and Union Territories had notified ECBC, while 13 had incorporated it into municipal bye-laws covering approximately 476 Urban Local Bodies (Ministry of Power, 2025; NITI Aayog, 2026).
This difference between the two frameworks illustrates the importance of the transition from a nationally developed technical standard to its incorporation within state and local regulatory systems. The eventual effectiveness of ECSBC 2024 will depend on how its provisions are incorporated into applicable building regulations and subsequently enforced by the relevant authorities.
At the same time, the Government’s broader energy-efficiency strategy places building efficiency within a wider effort to reduce energy consumption. Government estimates indicate that planned interventions across sectors including industry, buildings and transport could reduce energy consumption by 89 Mtoe in 2030 compared with a scenario without these interventions (Ministry of Power, 2025). ECSBC for commercial buildings and ENS for residential buildings have been published for adoption by States as part of this broader energy-efficiency strategy (PIB, 2025).
Thus, the early performance picture of ECSBC 2024 has two distinct dimensions. The standard itself establishes measurable and progressively higher performance requirements, while its regulatory impact will depend on the pace and quality of adoption. For India, the transition from ECBC to ECSBC therefore involves not only raising the technical standard for buildings but also building the institutional capacity required to translate that standard into actual improvements in energy performance.
Impact
The potential impact of ECSBC becomes clearer when India’s projected building stock and electricity demand are considered together.
NITI Aayog projects commercial building stock to increase from approximately 1.3 billion m² in 2020 to 4.4 billion m² by 2070, while total building floor space is projected to reach 42.5 billion m². Residential floor space is projected to increase from 16.5 billion m² in 2020 to 38.1 billion m² in 2070 (NITI Aayog, 2026).
Electricity demand rises alongside this expansion. NITI Aayog estimates that buildings consumed around 412 TWh of electricity in 2020. Under the Current Policy Scenario, this demand could rise to approximately 1,997 TWh by 2070. Under the Net Zero Scenario, however, demand is projected at around 1,671 TWh. The difference of roughly 326 TWh represents the potential electricity demand avoided through stronger efficiency and transition measures in the buildings sector (NITI Aayog, 2026).
Cooling is central to this trajectory. BEE identifies the growing use of room air-conditioners as a significant contributor to rising residential electricity consumption (BEE, 2026). This makes the design of buildings particularly relevant because the amount of mechanical cooling required is influenced not only by the efficiency of air-conditioning equipment but also by factors such as the building envelope, glazing, ventilation and exposure to heat.
The link between buildings and cooling is also reflected in the Government’s wider cooling strategy. The India Cooling Action Plan sets targets of reducing cooling demand by 20-25%, refrigerant demand by 25-30%, and cooling energy requirements by 25-40% by 2037-38 (PIB, 2025). This underlines why improving building performance matters for future electricity demand.
The impact of ECSBC also extends beyond the electricity consumed during a building’s operation. The materials used to construct buildings have their own environmental and resource costs. NITI Aayog notes that embodied carbon can account for as much as 50% of a building’s total whole-life carbon. ECSBC 2024 responds to this dimension by introducing an optional requirement to report embodied carbon associated with the extraction and manufacturing stages of materials (NITI Aayog, 2026).
As India’s building stock expands, incorporating these considerations at the design stage can influence the resource requirements and operating costs associated with a large share of the country’s future built environment.
Emerging Issues
The most immediate challenge for ECSBC 2024 is the gap between the formulation of the code and its implementation. The contrast between the earlier ECBC framework and ECSBC 2024 is significant. By December 2024, 25 States and Union Territories had notified ECBC, whereas NITI Aayog’s 2026 assessment reported that ECSBC 2024 had not yet been adopted by any State or Union Territory at the time of the assessment (Ministry of Power, 2025; NITI Aayog, 2026).
Implementation also depends on the institutional capacity available at the local level. NITI Aayog identifies several constraints, including reliance on manual and self-declared compliance processes, limited availability of skilled personnel within Urban Local Bodies and a shortage of qualified assessors. Fragmented systems and data platforms also make it difficult to develop reliable and comparable national-level datasets on building performance (NITI Aayog, 2026).
Another challenge is the existing building stock. Building codes primarily shape the design and construction of new buildings, but buildings that already exist will continue to consume energy for many years. This creates two separate policy requirements: improving the efficiency of new construction while also addressing the energy performance of existing buildings. The scale of India’s future building stock makes the first particularly important, but it does not remove the need to consider the second. NITI Aayog also points to limited information on ENS (Eco-Niwas Samhita) adoption and relatively low awareness among developers as continuing concerns (NITI Aayog, 2026).
A further issue concerns embodied carbon and life-cycle measurement. Although ECSBC includes an optional requirement for reporting embodied carbon at the A1 – A3 stages, NITI Aayog identifies the absence of comprehensive embodied-carbon benchmarks and databases as a continuing gap. The issue becomes more relevant because embodied carbon can account for up to 50% of a building’s whole-life carbon (NITI Aayog, 2026).
Finally, commissioning of building systems remains an important area of concern. Commissioning helps ensure that systems such as cooling, ventilation, lighting and controls operate as intended after installation. NITI Aayog notes that proper commissioning can result in estimated energy savings of 10 – 20%, with similar reductions in operating costs, while mandatory commissioning requirements remain limited (NITI Aayog, 2026).
This highlights a broader point about building efficiency: setting standards at the design stage is only one part of the process. The actual performance of a building also depends on how its systems are installed, tested, operated and maintained over time.
Way Forward
The first priority is to translate ECSBC from a national technical framework into a consistently implemented state and local regulatory instrument. The experience with ECBC provides an important institutional base. By December 2024, 25 States and Union Territories had notified ECBC, while 13 had incorporated it into municipal bye-laws (Ministry of Power, 2025). Building on this existing experience can help states integrate the newer sustainability requirements into their own building regulations while adapting implementation to local conditions.
Second, compliance needs to become more digital, transparent and measurable. NITI Aayog recommends the development of common digital platforms for building-code submissions, technical reviews, approvals, audits and updates, supported by national-level data systems (NITI Aayog, 2026). A more standardised digital process could make compliance easier to track and reduce dependence on fragmented, manual systems. This would strengthen the technical capacity required to verify whether buildings are actually meeting the standards.
Third, economic incentives for efficient construction should account for the fact that the costs and benefits of building efficiency occur at different points in time. Efficient buildings may require greater investment during design and construction, while many of the benefits emerge later through lower energy and operating costs.
NITI Aayog identifies several incentives being offered in specific states to encourage green building practices, including increases of 3–15% in permissible Floor Area Ratio (FAR), partial reimbursement of certification fees, and one-time rebates on stamp duty or property taxes (NITI Aayog, 2026). Such state-specific measures can help reduce the gap between upfront construction costs and longer-term operating benefits, while also providing a basis for states to design incentives suited to their local building markets.
Fourth, assessment should move beyond design-stage compliance towards actual building performance. Measures such as Energy Performance Index assessments, commissioning and post-occupancy monitoring can help determine whether the energy savings anticipated during design are being achieved once a building is occupied.
Finally, cooling and passive design should remain central to implementation. BEE data show that residential electricity consumption increased from 55 TWh in 1996 – 97 to 260 TWh in 2016 – 17, while consumption could reach 630 – 940 TWh by 2032 (BEE, 2026). With cooling becoming an increasingly important component of electricity demand, measures such as better building-envelope performance, natural ventilation, daylighting and efficient cooling systems have implications beyond environmental performance. They can also influence the future energy requirements and operating expenditure of households and building owners.
Conclusion
ECSBC 2024 marks a broader shift in how India approaches building regulation. While ECBC established energy performance as a measurable aspect of commercial buildings, ECSBC builds on that foundation by bringing sustainability, water and waste management, indoor environmental quality, renewable energy and life-cycle considerations into the same framework. Its three-tier structure also provides a progression from minimum compliance to higher levels of building performance (BEE, 2024).
The economic significance of this transition becomes clearer when viewed against the scale and long life of India’s future building stock.
The policy challenge, therefore, is not simply to accommodate India’s expanding demand for buildings, but to ensure that this expansion does not lock in unnecessarily high energy and resource requirements for decades. ECSBC provides a framework for improving the efficiency and sustainability of this future capital stock. Its eventual impact, however, will depend on how effectively the framework is adopted by states, implemented by local authorities, monitored through reliable performance data and supported by incentives that recognise the longer-term benefits of efficient buildings.
In this sense, the significance of ECSBC 2024 lies in its larger contribution in shaping the efficiency of India’s built environment at a time when most of that environment is still to be constructed.
References
- Bureau of Energy Efficiency. (2024). Energy Conservation and Sustainable Building Code 2024. Ministry of Power, Government of India
- Bureau of Energy Efficiency. (2026). ECSBC Commercial. Ministry of Power, Government of India. BEE, ECSBC Commercial
Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE)
- Bureau of Energy Efficiency. (2026). ECSBC Residential. Ministry of Power, Government of India. BEE, ECSBC Residential
Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE)
- NITI Aayog. (2026). Scenarios towards Viksit Bharat and net zero: Sectoral insights: Buildings (Vol. 5). Government of India. NITI Aayog, Sectoral Insights: Buildings
Scenarios-Towards-Viksit-Bharat-and-Net-Zero-Sectoral-Insights-Buildings.pdf
- Press Information Bureau. (2025, April 3). Target of doubling energy efficiency. Ministry of Power, Government of India. PIB, Target of Doubling Energy Efficiency
https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2118327®=48&lang=2
About the Contributor
Saachi Saxena is an undergraduate student pursuing B.A. (Hons.) Economics at Gargi College, University of Delhi. Her research interests include climate economics, public policy, sustainable development, healthcare economics, and development policy. She has actively contributed to policy research and social impact initiatives and is passionate about evidence-based policymaking for inclusive and resilient development.
Reviewers:
Pritha Chowdhury and Anamika
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to IMPRI – Impact and Policy Research Institute for providing the opportunity to prepare this policy update. The author sincerely acknowledges the guidance, valuable feedback, and constructive suggestions received during the review process, which significantly strengthened the quality and analytical depth of this article.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this policy update are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of IMPRI or any affiliated institution. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information and data presented, readers are encouraged to verify facts independently before relying on them for any decision-making purpose.
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