Green buildings accreditation system to be launched

Islamabad : Pakistan National Accreditation Council (PNAC) intends to award accreditation to the green buildings in Pakistan till the year 2022 to complement the efforts of the incumbent government toward achieving green energy efficiency and motivating people to build energy-efficient buildings.

The novel project was conceived by the Director General PNAC, Ismat Gul Khattak, who took charge of the office four months ago, and wanted to implement the idea for promoting the concept of green buildings in Pakistan.

Talking to this agency, Ismat Gul Khattak said the initiative would help encourage people to construct green buildings which would address the issue of energy and water wastage as well as raise the international image of the country.

‘The world would know that Pakistan too has green buildings’, she added.

The DG observed that the green building codes exist in Pakistan however, there was a need to implement these so that more people would incline towards energy-efficient buildings in the country.

Disclosing another innovative project, she said PNAC wanted to introduce the idea of a hospital accreditation system in Pakistan as only Shaukat Khanum Hospital, Shifa International, and Agha Khan Hospital got accreditation from the United States-based Joint Commission International (JCI) body which is very expensive.

PNAC has decided to introduce parallel hospitals accreditation system in Pakistan on which work has been started, she said.

Under this project, accreditation would be awarded on minimal rates to the hospitals ensuring the international quality and standards.

She said this was a huge task for which they have to conduct training of hospitals staff of different disciplines for preparing a team.

“We will invite international coaches from the United States and European countries to train the staff,” she said.

This initiative would promote health tourism in the country and patients who mostly move to other countries like Thailand and India etc. would come to Pakistan for medical treatment, she opined.

Listing another initiative to be taken in near future, she said a project of introducing organic farming certification would be initiated which according to the Director-General (DG) was very close to her heart.

She observed that organic farming could be done in some areas of the country which were still virgin where no traditional farming has been done and no fertilizers and pesticides were used.

There were many such plants and trees in the hilly areas of the country which were of medicinal value and were highly demanded in the international market, she said while emphasizing exporting these items.

She said certification of Global Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) was essential for rice and other potential export items as well as Good Laboratory practices (GLP) were also critically needed for pharmaceutical exports.

The DG also mentioned that the present government was eagerly focusing on tree plantation under its billion tree project so there was also a need to introduce forestry accreditation. “PNAC is also working on introducing the idea of forestry accreditation,” she said.

The world has progressed so much in the agriculture sector as some of the countries have even started vertical farming and people were utilizing the roofs and sidewalls for agriculture purposes while Pakistan was still not utilizing fully its potential in the agriculture field, she observed.

The DG said all such initiatives would be implemented gradually and would take two to three years due to a shortage of staff.

If PNAC would have required staff, all these initiatives could have been launched within six months period , she said.

About the accreditation, she said PNAC, working under Ministry of Science and Technology was formed actually for the improvement of trade and economic situation in the country along with facilitating the industry and removing barriers.

The website of PNAC was dynamic and providing all required information about the accreditation process while the staff also kept vigilance for people contacting through phone and other sources and promptly respond to their accreditation related needs.