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Our Green World (Now or Never): Success Story of Dr N.G.P. Institute of Technology Coimbatore

General Solar energy Waste management Green buildings SDGs Success Stories

Friday, 19 March 2021

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We, as NGPITians, are very proud to share this success story of ours in creating a Carbon Neutral world. Carbon Neutrality means achieving net-zero Carbon emissions. As such, we do not emit much Carbon Dioxide. As a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiative, we have taken steps to removed Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere to neutralize the emissions happening elsewhere. Moreover, we have been more conscious of reducing our carbon emissions as much as we could. Following are the measures that we had successfully implemented on our campus, in achieving this important milestone.

Tree planting and gardening medicinal plants
Solar power
Cutting down significantly on using fossil fuels
Encouraging students to use bicycles, instead of motorized vehicles (outside the campus)
Gradually converting our institution vehicles into the battery-operated mode, from conventional petroleum product mode
In our Petrol pump stations, we have created awareness about Carbon Neutrality
We have taken a pledge to become Carbon Neutral by 2050
Students do not use motorized vehicles within campus- they walk everywhere within our huge campus
As a role model, senior members of our institution are avoiding air travel as much as possible- thanks to the COVID-19 scare!

GREEN AUDITING:

The college has adopted the 'Green Campus' system for environmental conservation and sustainability. There are main three pillars i.e., zero environmental foot print, positive impact on occupant health and performance and 100% graduates demonstrating environmental literacy. The goal is to reduce CO2 emission, energy and water use, while creating atmosphere where students can learn and be healthy.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS FOR THIS PROJECT

SDG7: Affordable & Clean Energy
SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

ISSUES

Solar Energy
Sustainable Campus
Resource Management
Energy Optimisation
Renewable Energy

The students were divided into four groups and under the guidance of the staff coordinators of the Environment club, Department of electrical and electronics engineering, each group collected data on the assigned topics as follows:

Assessment of energy consumption and management
Assessment of water consumption and management
Assessment of landscape/ biodiversity in the campus
Assessment of air quality and waste management

All the data were compiled and documented with which the green audit was formulated.

There is no energy crisis, only a crisis of ignorance - energy consumption and management

Energy management includes planning and operation of energy production and energy consumption units as well as energy distribution and storage. Objectives are resource conservation, climate protection and cost savings. Our monthly energy consumption is 691774KWH. Usage of LED lighting and super fan has reduced the power consumption by 10% and 46% respectively. Our college as also equipped with generator (125KVA and 200KVA) of power and solar gird (50KW on grid and 110KW off grid).

Procedure Followed:

Don't throw your future away - Waste management

We have issues such as ocean pollution, global warming, air pollution, and environmental degradation. It is harder to bring a sudden improvement in these unless we start it managing our waste from home. It is important that we need to inform ourselves about the effects of excess waste production and improper waste management. Our Institute inspires to Live and Let Live- an eco-friendly lifestyle.

Our solid wastes are segregated and sent to authorized scrap agents
Our liquid wastes are treated in Sewage treatment plan (100KLD) and used for gardening & flush out purposes.
Biomedical and chemical wastes are safely stored and sent to authorize scrap agents for further processing.
E-waste is well handled by the institute's e waste management system.

Biodiversity is love. Biodiversity is life.

Biodiversity is the key to the maintenance of the world as we know it, our institute of 72882.06sq m maintains a medicinal garden with exotic and endangered species of medicinal plants. It also has specific areas for vehicle parking and calm places for student's relaxation. It includes spacious grounds for numerous sports activities. Plastic-free campus and pedestrian-friendly roads also put a new feather to our hat.

Conclusion:

The above initiatives are not 'one-off' phenomena. We constantly assess the efficiency of these and reinforce them. It creates a good will factor, and many students have volunteered to educate their local volunteers in achieving it on a global scale.

We all wanted to leave our footprint in this world, but definitely NOT a Carbon foot print!

JAI HIND!

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The Smart Campus Cloud Network

SCCN (sccnhub.com) is a network of the educational campuses of universities and colleges for promoting Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). It is one of the flagship projects of TERRE Policy Centre (terrepolicycentre.com), not-for-profit organization.

SCCN is strongly supported by UGC-India and UNESCO-Paris and is UNESCO's knowledge partner. Its digital platform was inaugurated by Hon. Minister Prakash Javadekar in Pune. TERRE has also recently signed an official MOU with Gulf Organization of Research and Development (GORD) at Qatar Science and Technology Park for the initiative of 'Climate Neutral Campus". Campus Sustainability Reports have now been published under SCCN by the universities.