Milestone, India’s largest independent Real Estate Fund house is launching Milestone Ecofirst Advisory Services (MEAS) through a 50:50 Joint Venture with Ecofirst. Ecofirst, established with a multi million pound budget, is a J. Leon Group company based in UK.

With the launch of Milestone Ecofirst Advisory Services (MEAS), for the first time in the country, a real estate fund house will be offering its invested companies/projects specialized consultancy services for eco-friendly development.

V. P. Arya, Managing Director Milestone Capital Advisors told“We want to ensure that most of the development (approx. five million sq ft) being funded by Milestone across the country would be eco-friendly and meet global norms in sustainable development,”.

“MEAS will not just offer its services to developers in metros, but for the first time in India offer world class green building consultancy to developers in Tier II and Tier III cities”, Mr. Arya added.

Milestone has invested in over twenty five projects across Tier II and Tier III cities, including residential, commercial, mixed-use projects and townships.

Initially MEAS will provide consultancy to projects being funded by Milestone and later extend the service to third party developers as well.

India has emerged as the hottest new favorite destination for green buildings and ranks fourth after US, Australia and Canada in the amount of area under green construction. As per CII-Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), one hundred forty seven million square feet of green space has been registered in India to date across a total of two hundred thirty nine projects. IGBC is aiming one billion sq ft of green footprint by 2012.

Milestone has so far raised over Rs.2, 400 crore from the domestic market and has the highest deployment ratio in the sector having so far signed investment deals worth Rs.1,800 crore.

Milestone presently is in the process of raising Rs.500 crores for its domestic fund “Milestone Domestic Scheme II”.