Photo: Collected
Finding a home in Dhaka is no longer merely a search for a roof over one’s head; bound up with it are the cost of living, the commute to work, electricity and water costs, the environment and the question of leaving a liveable city for future generations. Housing does not become affordable simply because a flat is bought at a low price. If the electricity bill climbs while living in that building, if maintenance costs rise, or if a long time and extra money have to be spent getting to work every day, the real cost of that housing goes up too.
From a trading centre on the bank of the Buriganga, Dhaka has gradually arrived at the shape of today’s vast metropolis. Since gaining the status of capital of Mughal Bengal in 1610, the city has had to pass through various stages of change. Dhaka, the capital of independent Bangladesh, is today the main centre of education, employment, trade and commerce, and economic activity. Naturally, demand for living here is rising constantly. In this reality, the big challenge of Dhaka’s housing planning is not merely to put up a larger number of buildings, but rather to ensure housing that is safe, environment-friendly, healthy and affordable in the long term.
5 October is World Habitat Day. The theme for 2026 is ‘Adequate housing for all’. The theme is a reminder that housing, besides being a basic human need, is also closely tied to urban planning, the economy and the environment. So the time has come to give importance to the concept of constructing green and affordable buildings in tackling Dhaka’s housing crisis.
In judging how affordable housing is, a calculation of only the sale price of a flat or the monthly rent is not enough. Added to it are the costs of electricity, water, maintenance, repairs and commuting. If a low-rent home is taken far from the workplace, a large part of that saving may be eroded by daily commuting costs. Likewise, if an unplanned building lacks adequate provision for light and air, an additional need for air conditioning arises, and the electricity bill climbs with it.
That is why the ‘life-cycle cost’ needs to be brought into the calculation from the very start of a building’s construction. How much money was spent on putting up a building is not its complete economic picture. How much will be spent on electricity, water, maintenance and repairs in the next 10, 20 or 30 years of the building’s use must also be included in the calculation.
A low initial cost does not mean the building will always be affordable. Rather, if the building’s energy and water use efficiency can be raised by investing a little in a planned way at the outset, it is possible to bring down a family’s expenses in the long term. The economic potential of green buildings has also emerged in reviews of various studies by the World Green Building Council.
Many people in our country still think that constructing a green building or environment-friendly building means a hefty additional cost. In reality, many effective green building measures can be incorporated at the design stage of construction itself, and they do not always require expensive technology.
Fixing the right orientation of the building, the proper arrangement of windows, maximum use of natural light and air, shading arrangements or the use of suitable locally available construction materials — if these matters are taken into consideration from the beginning, the building’s performance improves. Although this means some additional investment at the initial stage, the costs of electricity, water and maintenance may come down later.
So there is no scope to see green buildings only as a matter of protecting the environment. It is at the same time a way to reduce a family’s expenses and to increase the economic performance of a building.
Keeping in view Bangladesh’s climate, disaster risk, local construction materials and socio-economic reality, the Housing and Building Research Institute (HBRI) has formulated the HBRI-DESH Framework. The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) has provided technical assistance for it under the global programme of the United Nations Environment Programme, or UNEP.
The full form of DESH is Design for Environment and Sustainable Habitats. Alongside international experience, Bangladesh’s hot and humid weather, the risk of disasters, the availability of local materials and socio-economic reality have been given importance in this framework. DESHboard plays a supporting role in design and evaluation. UN-Habitat is reviewing how the framework can be applied in practice.
In other words, a framework for evaluating green buildings that is consistent with the country’s own reality already exists in Bangladesh. What is needed now is to ensure its widespread use.
Rajuk’s revised Detailed Area Plan, or DAP, can also play an important role in the capital’s future housing planning. According to the revised gazette of 14 December 2025, provision has been kept for green buildings that fulfil the prescribed conditions, including the necessary approvals and certificates, to get up to 0.5 additional FAR.
FAR, or Floor Area Ratio, is the ratio of a building’s total countable floor area to the area of the land.
Special provision has also been kept in the DAP for affordable housing. In unplanned areas, for a mixed use of A3 — apartments and flat houses — and A6 — affordable housing — up to 0.5 or 0.75 additional FAR may be available subject to fulfilment of the prescribed conditions. Of these, the first option provides for five units of a prescribed size on at least 10 kathas of land, and the second option for reserving 5 per cent of the total floor space for affordable housing on at least 20 kathas of land. Either one of the two options will apply.
Such policy benefits are important for developers and building owners. So the economic advantages of these opportunities need to be properly assessed when planning housing projects.
It would not be right to confine the discussion of green housing only to the construction of new buildings. The number of old buildings in Dhaka is huge. It is possible to increase the efficiency of electricity and water use in those buildings through the necessary renovation or retrofit.
Evaluation may be carried out using the HBRI-DESH Framework according to the type of building and the applicable conditions. In addition, international green building certification systems such as EDGE or LEED can also be considered.
Making old buildings more efficient may in many cases be more effective than constructing new buildings, in terms of both resources and the environment.
A green building is planned and constructed in such a way that the negative impact on the environment over the building’s entire life cycle is as low as possible. In this way, energy and water use efficiency can be increased, greenhouse gas emissions reduced, construction materials used effectively and a healthy environment ensured inside the building.
In a densely populated metropolis like Dhaka, its importance is even greater. Environment-friendly buildings can play an important role in tackling problems such as the additional demand for air conditioning, electricity use, air pollution or the rise in the city’s temperature.
The designs of about 10,000 buildings are approved every year in the area under Rajuk. If even just 10 per cent of these buildings are constructed as green buildings, it could mark the beginning of a major change in Dhaka’s green housing system.
Alongside the potential, the challenges are not few either. Compared to conventional construction methods, the initial cost of energy-efficient technology may in many cases be higher. There is also a lack of awareness about green construction among developers, building owners and buyers. So, besides creating skilled professionals, the sector needs to be encouraged through FAR incentives and low-interest loans.
The big developer companies have the design capability, purchasing power and technological experience. If they wish, they can set practical examples of green construction even in housing projects built for middle-income people.
Similarly, in the construction of government housing, schools, hospitals and public and private office buildings too, not only the construction cost but the cost of the entire life cycle needs to be taken into account. If information is published on how much the initial investment in a project was and how much was saved on electricity, water and maintenance during the period of use, it can become an effective example for future projects.
In this case, banks and other financing institutions will also have to come forward. If loans suited to green and affordable housing, long-term financing and tolerable instalments can be arranged, it is possible to lower the barrier of additional initial cost for limited-income families.
From a policy standpoint, Bangladesh Bank can also play an important role here. Alongside new buildings, financing opportunities need to be created for renovation work to increase the energy and resource use efficiency of old buildings as well.
The thinking and creativity of the young can also open the door to new possibilities in Dhaka’s future urban planning. The ‘Carbon Conscious Urban Design Idea Competition’, organised as a joint initiative of Rajuk, UNOPS and UNEP in coordination with the Ministry of Housing and Public Works, has brought students an opportunity to think about sustainable public spaces.
The students’ various ideas on local and recycled materials, greening, water management and public spaces usable by all have shown that expensive technology is not always the only solution for building a sustainable city.
Effective urban spaces can also be built with limited resources through designs that are in harmony with the local environment, long-lasting and easy to maintain. Initiatives need to be taken to apply these ideas in real projects after verifying their cost, technical reality and buildability.
Such cooperation between Rajuk and UNOPS therefore deserves praise.
Data from the Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction 2025-2026 says that about half of the building stock that will exist in the world in 2050 has not yet been built. For Bangladesh, which is on the path of rapid urbanisation, this is as much a great opportunity as it is a big challenge.
Because the building being designed today will perhaps remain in people’s use for the next 50 years or even more. How much electricity that building will use, how much water it will consume, how much impact it will have on the environment and what the monthly expenses of the people living there will come to — a large part of this is being settled by today’s design and construction decisions.
So from now on Dhaka’s housing policy must give importance to green design, life-cycle cost, a home-grown evaluation framework, incentives, affordable financing and the creation of practical examples. Alongside the construction of new buildings, initiatives must also be taken to make old buildings efficient and environment-friendly.
To make housing truly affordable, it will not do merely to cut costs during construction; the cost over the entire period of habitation must be reduced. Green construction is one of the most effective ways of taking forward together these two things — protecting the environment and people’s economic savings.
The future of Dhaka’s housing is therefore not merely a future of a larger number of buildings; it must be a future of housing that is low-cost, low-carbon, healthy and within people’s reach.
It is green buildings that can become the sustainable foundation of affordable housing.
