My City My Responsibility - Why Educational Campuses should go low carbon?

Dear All, 

Pune is a hub of education. It is known as the Oxford of the East due to the presence of innumerable universities, management education institutes, professional degree colleges etc..

Due to all these organizations, the city is full of youngsters who migrate from different parts of the country and world, making the city a live and vibrant city. However, migration for education or job opportunities has led to mass urbanization in the city leading it to be one of the reasons for increase in carbon emissions of the city. It has now become crucial for all of us to be prepared for erratic changes in weather pattern and other potential disasters arising from climate change. At the same time, it is equally important to keep the future carbon emissions under control. Mobilizing the enthusiasm and energy of the youth to undertake strategies for reducing carbon emissions can be a good step to cope with the upcoming challenges.  

As educational institutions form the source of knowledge, if these institutions undertake the activity of calculating their carbon emissions and design a strategy to reduce the same in order to attain carbon neutrality (reducing the net greenhouse gas emissions to zero) by involving the enthusiastic faculty and students of their colleges. This activity will enable a win-win situation for both the institutions as well as the youth. Here the institutions can provide hands-on learning by acting upon what they preach. This in turn can create a good opportunity for brand building as a green or eco-friendly institution. Every year the institutions can take up this activity and publish their carbon emission reductions year on year in order to showcase their contributions towards mitigating climate change.  In the process, the youth undertaking this activity will be sensitized to be environmentally conscious citizens and professionals of tomorrow. 

From this perspective, we at Samuchit along with Laya Resource Centre, The Indian Network of Ethics and Climate Change (INECC) and Pune International Centre (PIC) thought of introducing the concept of making college campuses go low carbon. The first step of this process is a one day workshop under the YuvaDrishti initiative of Laya-INECC. This workshop is focused on youth (below the age of 35 years) from colleges in Pune that are keen to make their campuses go Carbon Neutral. The idea is to involve young faculty along with students as a team to work on this activity. Though the workshop will be just a one day event, the activity can run for an entire semester depending upon the initiative of the college. Our panel of resource persons will be available throughout for mentoring and guiding the faculty and students in the entire process. 

Source: https://www.plt.org/greenschools/engage-your-students/

If interested kindly write to me at pournima@samuchit.com. All the educational institutions from Pune are invited to participate in this event.

Pournima Agarkar. 

www.samuchit.com

Reduce Consumption;Save Resources

Good morning!

Last month, Indian Network on Ethics and Climate Change (INECC), of whom Samuchit is part of conducted a youth conference at Paderu, AP on the topic Resilience to Climate Change through Community-Based Development. Various partner organizations of INECC came from all over India and discussions were held on different community engagements and participation efforts. As part of the field visits, we went to Badama village and met the Konda tribe who currently uses the water filters and improved smokless chulhas of Laya resource center,Paderu which has made their life easier and quality better. The conference was mainly on rural initiatives of the partner organizations and how they are helping community to adapt to the various climate change issues related to farming, rainwater harvesting and other livelihood activities.

Badama Village

After coming back to Pune, one thing which kept occurring in my mind was how different we - people in the cities and towns- live. Nothing is enough for us. We need more and more – of everything.  This trend of buying more and more among the masses is relatively recent. Since the last 10-15 years simultaneous with the growth of IT in India and rise of middle income group, materialism has grown.  We are made to believe that whatever is advertised is necessary for us. In olden days, if something does not working, we fix it; now we throw it and buy a new one.

A middle income family now goes for clothes shopping minimum 4 times a year which used to be once earlier. Now shopping is based on new arrivals and sale rather than the need. Eating habits have also changed with the arrival of gourmet food and fine dining. Now it’s a must to eat out with family or order food once a week. Another section which has found prominent place in every one’s life is beauty and health products – irrespective of gender, everyone spends a significant amount on skin care, hair care, perfumes and other fancy products. Also a must in family schedule is weekly entertainment – be it cinema or adventure park or trips.  A kid growing in this era thinks they cannot live without the above and it becomes their basic necessities. I am also part of this materialistic behavior -  my definition of basic necessities has evolved to include a higher level of material needs.  

Conference participants with a caption
for future.

The result of such a trend is large waste generation and more resource usage. We are depleting earth’s resource more than it can rejuvenate.  Lets try consciously to REDUCE CONSUMPTION and come out of  the bubble that is put around us..

JUST THINK OVER - Can't we reduce our Consumption? - Aren't we blindly becoming more materialistic?

Anu K

anukuncheria@gmail.com