Green Sense

May 03, 2018

Why this toolkit for green campuses?

Education plays central role in building professional cadres and knowledge to take the sustainability agenda forward. Transforming places of formal learning—colleges, universities and other large educational institutions— as resource-efficient and low-carbon campuses can demonstrate practice for sustainability.

There is growing interest globally to frame practical strategies for resource savings, conservation and waste reduction to make centres of learning deliver on sustainability indicators and help education community connect with the practical value of sustainable practices that can also have a multiplier effect on the larger society.

The potential of transforming campuses of educational institutions to deliver on sustainability is enormous. As of 2013, India has 45 central universities, 318 state universities, 185 state private universities, 129 deemed to be universities, 55 autonomous institutes of national importance and 37,204 registered colleges. To illustrate, this translates, in terms of energy, into emission of 231 million tonnes of equivalent carbon dioxide (eCO2 ) per annum approximately.1 The need for water, land and biodiversity will be as enormous.