CSE's Green Schools Awards, 2013: Schools awarded for innovating on rainwater harvesting, waste management etc. 11 Delhi schools feature in the list of winners

• Centre for Science and Environment’s (CSE) Gobar Times national and state-level Green Schools Awards for 2013 presented. Ramakant Goswami, Delhi’s minister for transport, election, law and labour, and the popular band Indian Ocean present the awards

• Awards go to 11 Delhi-based schools and 25 schools from rest of India, which have excelled in natural resource management based on environmental audit done by their students and teachers

• Two Sri Lankan schools join the list of award winners for their initiative in controlling plastic waste on their premises

New Delhi, April 12, 2013: This year's Annual Green Schools Programme (GSP) awards, instituted by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), were presented today to school students and teachers from across India, who drive change through various green practises in their school compounds and outside.

“Students from all over the nation are doing exemplary work in environmental conservation by minimising water consumption and harvesting water, optimising their energy use, shifting to mass transport modes, and catering to biodiversity conservation in their school compound. Their efforts are laudable and we have some very motivated green soldiers present here today,” said Sunita Narain, director general, CSE referring to the 36 schools which received their Green School Awards here today.

These awards are conferred every year by CSE to recognise schools in India that excel in their natural resource management. These schools carry out rigorous self-audit on environmental practices within their own premises, following a set of guidelines issued by CSE (for details, please visit the CSE website).

This year’s awards were presented by Ramakant Goswami, minister of transport, election, law and labour, Government of Delhi, and members of the popular Indian rock band, Indian Ocean.

Among this year’s key winners are Father Agnel School, Gautam Nagar, New Delhi; DAV Public School, Gurgaon, Haryana; and Motilal Nehru School of Sports, Sonipat, Haryana. Schools competing for the first time for the awards were also lauded for their work (see attached profiles for details).

"The number of schools participating in the Programme has gone up to 21,000 from 15,000 in the past two years. The programme has been extended to Sri Lanka, and two schools from there have been awarded for their work in waste management here today,” said Sumita Dasgupta, programme director of CSE's Environment Education Unit which manages this initiative.

The awards are divided into two main categories – national and state. The 20 national awards are further sub-divided into two segments of 10 awards each – the New Schools (those which have done the audit for the first time and have excelled) and Changemakers (those which have already done the audit once before and continue to excel).

An analysis shows water management has been the top priority for most of the schools, followed closely by waste management. Most of these schools have been using public transport or eco-friendly school buses. Energy conservation has also been high in their agenda, with schools taking care to consume less and use energy-efficient equipment along with installing renewable source of energy such as solar.