One of the world’s most sustainable printed circuit board (PCB) factories, designed by Studio Saar for its parent company and Indian multi-national metering and energy business Secure Meters, has started construction in Sehore, central India. On track to complete in October 2026, Secure Sehore is projected to supply 30% of the country’s PCB demand, bolstering the resilience of India’s high-tech manufacturing sector, which currently sources only 10% of these critical components domestically. The facility will employ 1,000 people, with 500 working on site at peak capacity.
The 50,000 sqm plant will include an on-site, state-of-the-art water purification system, recycling 95% of the one million litres of ultrapure water (UPW) required daily for PCB manufacturing, in contrast to an industry average of 65-75%. In addition, a series of underground tanks with a capacity of eleven million litres, will collect rainfall thourgh the year, enabling Secure Sehore to be resilient to water scarcity. The tanks are built cost-effectively and sustainably using traditional masonry techniques, stone, lime mortar and fly-ash bricks. Earth excavated during construction will cover the tanks to form green mounds that surround the facility and shelter it from dust storms.
The project has helped kickstart further development in the region with the three new fly-ash brickworks that opened to serve the Secure Sehore build now having secured multi-year orders from other developments. In addition, all materials used for the building structure have been sourced from within a 60km radius of the site.
In addition to its world-class water conservation credentials, Secure Sehore will be fully powered by a combination of solar and wind power. 4MW of the 14MW needed to power the facility will be generated on site using photovoltaic panels, while the rest of the power will be purchased from certified renewable sources.
Designed according to the principles of passive, circular, and regenerative design, the Secure Sehore factory building will feature a double-skin façade, with an outer skin made of red sandstone panels angled to optimise passive shading and reduce thermal radiation from affecting the sensitive processes indoors. The double façade system will utilise stack effect to draw air between the façade layers to help cool the structure, insulated walls to prevent thermal bridging, and external stone layers to absorb heat and delay heat transmission, leading to a reduction of the scheme’s projected energy use for cooling by 12-15%. Drought-resilient native climbing plants will be grown along the outer layer to further purify the air around the site. A shaded north lighting and an internal courtyard will bring daylight to the factory floor, helping to reduce the need for artificial lighting and creating a healthier workplace.
Set on a 12m structural grid, the factory’s load-bearing structure comprises green steel that has been designed for disassembly and reuse along with low-carbon fly-ash concrete and is designed for off-site manufacture ensuring precise and rapid assembly. The outer façade, structure, and interior finishes are also designed for disassembly and reuse after the plant reaches its projected 90-year lifespan. A rooftop pavilion with an adjacent terrace will provide employee facilities such as a canteen, exhibition spaces, and recreational and sports indoor and outdoor areas, all with an elevated view of the surroundings.
Alongside environmental sustainability, Secure Sehore will ensure staff safety, health, and wellbeing by providing ample medical facilities, a crèche, mass transport to and from site, bicycles for use on site, and gender-neutral sanitary facilities. The factory’s amenities are also aimed at enabling equal participation of women in the workforce, who comprise 55% of Secure’s workers.
An ongoing rewilding programme across 40% of the site includes the planting of 14,000 trees, shrubs, and grasses, helping to restore a native biodiverse habitat and provide the workers with green outdoor recreational areas. This strategy will also reduce the additional burden of water for irrigation, while providing rare Ayurvedic produce. The effort employs traditional rewilding methods, including planting saplings alongside unglazed terracotta pots enabling a low evaporation and low cost method for watering.
Ananya Singhal, Managing Partner at Studio Saar: “Every once in a while you get a chance to work on a scheme that can change paradigms and start with economic, social, carbon, and a biodiverse, regenerative approach. By working with Secure from the fundamentals of their process needs to the overall design of the scheme, we have eked out all the benefits and hope to transform how factories are built.”
Suket Singhal, Group CEO & Managing Director, Secure: “PCBs are critical to all electronic products, but are essentially a customised commodity. In our business model we are trying to transform the customer service experience; this is only possible to do because the building has been designed from the ground up solely to deliver the new customer service levels.”
