SuRe Certification in India: EKA Arena by TransStadia in Ahmedabad

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SuRe Certification in India: EKA Arena by TransStadia in Ahmedabad

Background and objective

The EKA Arena is one of Asia’s biggest stadiums and will likely contribute to a wider acknowledgment of sustainable infrastructure and its certification through its adoption of the SuRe® standard. This is a major step for the Sustainable Infrastructure Alliance in terms of their activities, as it propels the SuRe® standard into the mainstream.

The EKA Arena, is a multi-purpose sports and recreational complex, built under Public-Private Partnership(PPP) with the sports company SE TransStadia Pvt. Ltd and the government of the state Gujarat, India, with a capital cost of US$ 80 million. The Arena opened in 2016 and is the first stadium in India that can host more than a dozen sports combined with wellness, leisure, and other facilities. The Arena is a 0.12 km2 venue with a seating capacity of 20,000 attendees.

This project is the first of its kind in India to use the PPP model, and is an example of employing a market-based approach which combines sports, culture, and infrastructure development by incentivizing the private sector to create innovative business models. To overcome financial hurdles, TransStadia created a self-sustained and multi-functional design of the Arena that uses and manages resources and its space efficiently. It has a resilient eco-building design and engages with all stakeholders inclusively.

Achievements

The main motivation of adopting the SuRe® standard by the project operators was to promote the stadium to a wider audience, showcase its benefits and verify its sustainability by applying the international standard. SuRe® helped to establish a common understanding of Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure between project operators, financiers, public sector institutions and end-users, as well as to improve the quality of the project so they are built on Sustainable and Resilient principles.

Third-party certification of the project has entered the final phase, and it is expected that a SuRe® certificate will be granted to the project in 2020 if the project demonstrates compliance to the Standard.

Insights from stakeholders

The EKA Arena project contributes to the region’s tourism and sports sector, helps increase economic growth, and can improve the reputation of Ahmedabad as an international hub. By achieving SuRe® certification—and indeed by becoming the first project in India to achieve this distinction—the project also serves as a model for sustainable and inclusive urban infrastructure. Through the SuRe® certification process, the project has engaged with the people of Ahmedabad, ensuring that the project fully realizes its potential as a public venue for physical, social and cultural activities, thereby becoming a benchmark for the whole country. The case of EKA Arena shows that infrastructure projects in emerging and developing countries benefit from integrating economic, social and governance factors, as well as involve stakeholder-engagement, through adopting international standards such as SuRe®.