Nilanjan claims that at the Forum they have developed techniques to reduce the quantity of construction materials and also substituted them with low-energy consuming materials thereby making the buildings cost effective and eco-friendly. The manner in which the urban habitats are becoming a concrete jungle, technologies tried by Nilanjan's forum appear to be the need of the time.

Knowing the actual quantity of carbon dioxide emissions in the manufacture of construction materials is important says Nilanjan. The ingredients for a 'pucca' building are steel, cement and brick. Production of one ton of crude steel emits about 2.75 ton of carbon dioxide. It is natural that conversion of crude steel to processed steel emits higher quantities of carbon. Similarly cement manufacture releases about 0.9 ton of carbon dioxide for each ton of cement produced.

Nilanjan has not taken the environmental degradation due to extraction of sand in his paper because sand is a natural product obtained from the river beds. However, one must remember that despite being freely available, removal of vast quantities of sand leads to degradation of river banks causing water-logging in the post monsoon periods and indiscriminate extraction causes extensive bank erosion. Similarly in the large cities like Chennai and Bangalore the thickness of sand available is very little and it is a major source of ground water. The author had reported extraction of sand from tube-wells which had stopped yielding water. Such extractions cause large scale sinking. Even over-exploitation of tube-wells leads to 'caving in' and the sand grains after losing the film of water, just collapse. Due to this reason, in Agra in U.P. reports of houses collapsing due to sinking of ground were in the news two years ago. Therefore despite sand being naturally available ingredient for construction activities, it needs to be mined with caution. It may not add to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere but haphazard mining does leads to land degradation and misery for the common man. 

The most important unit of a building is the brick. Nilanjan says that brick production is carried out in a big way and the kilns guzzle large quantities of coal. He records that 38 tons of carbon dioxide is released in the atmosphere for every 100,000 bricks manufactured. Brick manufacture has another serious implication which Nilanjan has not taken in to account as his discourse is mainly about carbon emission and ways to control it. Brick manufacture needs lots of clay. On the outskirts of any township in the alluvial planes of north India one can find innumerable brick kilns dotting the landscape. Well these planes as we know have been formed by the painstaking efforts of the rivers which have deposited all the sands the richest vaults of ground water. In addition there are layers of clays, which are now the source of the bricks. One can see degraded land around the brick kilns where the clays have been removed and converted to bricks. These depressions lead to water stagnation and alkalinization of the soil. Finally even the area surrounding the brick kiln becomes infertile. Very few people realize that it will take another 1000 years for the nature to get back what has been removed.

Nilanjan recommends use of various cost saving technologies like Rat-trap bond in wall construction, which involves laying bricks on their sides with a cavity of 4" in between. The plain surfaces of bricks make the outer surfaces of the walls. This bond has strength equal to a 250 mm solid brick wall yet consumes 20% less bricks. Total cost of 26% is saved by this technique. The air gap of 4" provides a good insulation to keep the rooms cool during summers and warm during the winters. The plain surfaces of brick walls need no plaster hence save the cost of cement and sand, labor and are aesthetically pleasing. This technique was popular in England for buildings up to three stories till the turn of the 20th century. Laurie Baker (1917-2007) an English architect came to India in 1945 as a missionary and settled here in Thiruvananthapuram. Houses constructed by him using this technique stand firmly even today after more than 40 years. 

The other techniques that cut costs of material and construction are Brick arches in lieu of traditional RCC lintels. These cost about 30-40% less than the lintels. Similarly Filler slab in roof composed of bricks, tiles etc consumes much less steel as the roof becomes lighter in weight. Costs of such roofs are reduced by about 23%. Additional 40% saving is obtained by this technique as it needs less steel and cement says Nilanjan. Yet another technique is use of compressed earth blocks made of a mixture of cement, gypsum and lime. Because of uniform shape bonding them is faster and construction is naturally faster. It is overall cost efficient technique. However, in high rainfall areas such blocks need a layer of plaster.

Rise in population has increased the need for more and more dwellings. The government's programme of constructing two million houses each year since 1998-99 is a fall out of spurt in population only. Nilanjan says that if each dwelling is of 20 sq m a total of 40 million sq m per year will be constructed. If cost effective technologies recommended by his group is used carbon dioxide emission can be reduced by 16.80 metric tons per year and in terms of money it will save Rs. 24,000 million. Carbon credits worth Rs 1200 million can thus be achieved.

Presently many architects in the country are working on energy efficient housing. Nilanjan's work has added another dimension of energy and cost efficient housing which is eco-friendly too. Such technologies need to be given a wider publicity as they give other brighter ideas to the architects and create an environment for sustainable development.