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

My City My Responsibility - Sustainably Smart city

Dear All, 

I have been travelling in the last few weeks to a lot of places from Vizag-Delhi-Tokyo-Mexico-Pune and all the while I missed blogging, however after this long journey, I would like to share some of the insights of my journey through the sustainability lens. 

For conducting carbon audit of Laya Resource centre, I got an opportunity to visit Visakhapatnam (Vizag in short). Vizag is one of the smart city having a coastal ecosystem with clean beaches having toilets considering disabled people which is rarely seen. The streets and beaches were free from plastic wastes to an extent though there is no official ban! However, in the wave of beautification, the city has set up several statues of babies and wildlife all around the city which made the city look colorful but a bit weird! 

Meanwhile I could attend a RWA (Resident Welfare Association) meet where citizens gathered to discuss waste management issues in their areas which I feel is a good step towards attaining sustainability through citizens' participation which is otherwise not a common thing in Vizag.   

India Gate, Delhi

Happened to visit Delhi yet another smart city in the making, which consists of rich cultural heritage worth seeing (amidst the heavily polluted air and extreme weather pattern). The people in the city seem to be used to the drama happening in and around the city and have become resilient to it. Especially the safety issues, religious protests and terror attacks and all is quite a norm for all. On other hand,  where I attended a conference on #youthwagingpeace by UNESCO MGIEP. I could see a lot of young Delhites advocating for peace against violent extremism in the name of religion, caste, gender, safety, education etc. Met a 17 year old Rohingya community boy educating his community as a social service since he believes that education alone can help improve the situation of his community. I feel that the youth undertaking such initiatives in the city like Delhi can be a wise and sustainable way forward for the capital city. 

Then I landed in Tokyo, en-route to Mexico where I was to attend the conclusion event of my Mentoring for Leadership program on #EducationforSustainableDevelopment. I had a layover of 11 hours at the Tokyo/Narita airport. The airport is huge, it displays various forms of Japanese art and theatre through art galleries inside the airport. Even here I noticed that the washrooms were designed inclusively for the safety and support of mothers with babies, for blind by having braille and audio visual facility, disabled friendly and very user friendly. Inclusiveness which is one of the key aspects of sustainability is so well imbibed in their approach that portrays Sustainable smartness.  

Finally reached Mexico, and my program was held in the University of Guanajuato in Leon, a small city around 380 kms away from Mexico city. I got an opportunity to present our work on Sustainability in the public space of the University and was appreciated by all the people who visited the stand. From here I traveled to the heritage city of Guanajuato. The city is situated in a valley and is full of alleys which makes it walking and biking friendly. Its a good way to connect to the city and also good for health. The city has several tunnels for the cars and buses to move in and out of the city. Various aspects of sustainability could be seen in and around the city that makes it a livable city.

All the above aspects can be easily adopted in Pune city to make it a Sustainably smart city. Our city is rich in culture and heritage. Especially the central part of the city if kept free from four wheelers can be maintained and promoted as the heritage area of the city. The activeness of the citizens and the youth in the city make it a vibrant and live city which can ensure good governance in the city. Appropriate use of ICT can make our city disaster resistant and user friendly. Waste management and conservation of our natural resources will make us a ecologically robust city.

So what is holding us back from being a Sustainably Smart city???

Pournima Agarkar.