My City My Responsibility - Way to go Carbon Neutral for Educational campuses in Pune

Dear All, 

CNC Handbook Released!

On 16 June 2019 INECC, Laya and Samuchit conducted an event on Showcasing Carbon Neutrality Approach by Educational Campuses at the Dr Bhanuben Nanavati College of Architecture (BNCA) Auditorium. My hearty congratulations to all the three colleges namely Pune Vidyarthi Griha's (PVG) College of Engineering and Technology, Pune, Waghire College of Arts, Commerce and Science, Saswad and our cohost of the event BNCA, Karvenagar for completing carbon accounting of their colleges and helping us showcase the pathway towards carbon neutrality. 

The three colleges were guided under Laya's Yuvadrishti initiative. We conducted two workshops for the colleges with inputs coming from Dr Priyadarshini Karve, Prof Amitav Mallik, and Mr Myron Mendes. Experiential learning was very well implemented through this initiative. The colleges got a good hands on practice on how to calculate an institute's carbon footprint and this entire process also helped us frame a 'Do it Yourself' handbook that can be used as a guideline by any educational institute for calculating their carbon emissions. I realized that a win-win situation is crucial for Sustainability.

In this event we also released the handbook and it is available for free with us. In order to avail a copy, please write to me at pournima@samuchit.com.

Prof. Amitav Mallik

Mr. Mangesh Dighe

All three colleges presented their campus carbon emissions data and how they plan to go forward. Electricity consumption (scope 2 emissions) was found to be the major contributor of carbon emissions in all the three campuses. Their studies also highlighted that apart from this indirect emissions (scope 3) through hired vehicles and waste generation (especially for architectural colleges that use a lot of stationary material) also plays a crucial role in generating considerable carbon emissions. However, calculating the same is quite tedious. In spite of the challenges, the colleges managed to report the same which is really commendable. The colleges mentioned that there has to be an incentive for the colleges as well for conducting such activities. Kirloskar Vasundhara festival is one such activity that helped PVG College to form an EcoClub through which they could undertake more of such activities for the college. While Waghire College stressed that having motivated teachers is crucial as well in order to sensitize students for undertaking action oriented solutions to such issues. For BNCA, the architectural course structure allowed them to make the carbon accounting as a part of a student's curricular requirement.

There are two outcomes that emerged from this event and will motivate the educational institutes in Pune to undertake Carbon accounting and go towards Carbon Neutrality.

Firstly, an announcement made by Prof Amitav Mallik, a trustee of Pune International Centre (PIC) and convener of the Climate Collective Pune (CCP), that on the World Environment Day 2020, three Pune colleges that make the maximum strides in reducing carbon emissions and going towards Carbon Neutrality over the past year will be rewarded. Secondly, our chief guest PMC Environment Officer Mr Mangesh Dighe announced that Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) will put all colleges that take up Carbon accounting on a map on PMC's website.

Glimpses of our event

I would like to thank Mr. Dighe for his support and encouragement, and also thank Prof Mallik and  CCP for joining hands with us and supporting us. The event was well supported by our volunteers who were full of energy and enthusiasm and educated the attendees on personal carbon footprinting using our web based calculator. If you are interested in knowing your own footprint check out this link: https://www.climatecollectivepune.org/CPC/

We are looking up to colleges, educational institutes and organizations who would like to take up the carbon accounting exercise for their colleges in order to make Pune's Educational campuses Carbon Neutral. 

Pournima Agarkar.

www.samuchit.com

P.S Now you can make online donations so that we can continue to contribute towards sustainable urbanization. For details email me. :)

MUSINGS FROM PRIYADARSHINI KARVE: Education & Climate Change

Education always needs to be forward thinking. A person studying in an undergraduate degree course today needs to acquire the skills that he/she will require to function 8-10-15 years from now. Educational system therefore has to anticipate and mold itself to the future. 

Is the education system of today doing enough to equip the youth to face the biggest challenge that they will encounter when they step out into the real world? 

This is the challenge of climate change. Climate change has now become a Climate Crisis. What we do with our energy and material resources in the next decade will decide the fate of humanity post-2050. But even if we manage to avoid the crisis, there are certain climate change impacts that are now unavoidable. We need to train young people not only to MITIGATE greenhouse gas emissions which will address the emerging crisis, but also to ADAPT to the changes that past greenhouse gas emissions are already causing. 

We believe that a Carbon Neutral Campus (CNC) initiative is a good way for educational campuses to equip today's youth to deal with tomorrow's climate crisis, while the campus itself becomes a part of the solution rather than a part of the problem. 

If an educational campus decides to go carbon neutral, and track its own net carbon emissions, it is creating a culture of 'living with climate change'. Young people who will experience the culture over the 3-5 years that they will be spending on the campus, will take the habits and learnings with them in their personal and professional lives. 

In 2018 Samuchit Enviro Tech tested out the CNC idea in Pune under the umbrella of a youth-focused climate change themed programme 'Yuva Drishti', in collaboration with our partner organisation Laya. Our focus was on undergraduate education campuses in Pune. Today three colleges have completed the first critical step of measuring their carbon emissions and planning for a low carbon campus. We have learned from the experience, and also came up with a step-by-step 'do it yourself' guide that will allow any educational campus to complete its carbon accounting and plan to go low or zero carbon over a specific time period. 

The start of this blog clearly explains why we are focusing on youth and specifically educational campuses. There is another reason which made us focus on educational campuses in Pune. Samuchit Enviro Tech is part of the Climate Collective Pune, and we are committed to doing our bit towards the goal of CCP - Making Pune city Carbon Neutral by 2030. Pune is 'Oxford of the East'! The city is teeming with a wide variety of educational and institutional campuses. Therefore, we feel that if all the educational campuses in Pune move towards carbon neutrality over the next 5-7 years, Pune as a city can achieve the goal of carbon neutrality by 2030! We can do it! 

Please join us on Saturday 15 June evening (please see poster above) to celebrate the visionary educational organisations that worked with us and have set out on the journey towards carbon neutrality. We will also be releasing our 'do it yourself' Handbook for Carbon Neutral Campus on this occasion. The event will be co-hosted by Samuchit Enviro Tech, Laya, Indian Network on Ethics and Climate Change, Climate Collective Pune, and Department of Environmental Architecture, Dr. Bhanuben Nanavati College of Architecture, Pune. 

I am looking forward to seeing all of you there! 

Priyadarshini Karve

Director

Samuchit Enviro Tech

#BeModernBeResponsibleBeRespectful

   

Samuchit Enviro Tech.     samuchit@samuchit.com     www.samuchit.com