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. :)