Scientific and technological innovations have driven human societies toward economic growth. However, such innovations also led to irreversible consequences because of their impact on the environment. Multiple actors must play their role in mitigating these consequences.
First, higher education institutes (HEIs) through their knowledge creation must prepare students for a sustainable future. Second, industries must develop technologies that are low-carbon and clean. Third, society must have more awareness of its responsibility in adopting sustainable practices.
Indian HEIs can play an important role in this through multiple paths — education, research and implementation of sustainable practices on their campuses in tune with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020’s emphasis on sustainable development goals (SDGs). Among 17 SDGs, Goal 11 (sustainable cities and communities) and Goal 13 (climate action) are particularly relevant.
HEIs can realize carbon-neutral campuses by promoting solar power, energy-efficient building practices, and adopting waste reduction strategies in alignment with Goal 12 (responsible consumption and production).
For instance, HEIs must compulsorily adopt sustainable modes of transportation within campus spaces such as walking, cycling and use of electric vehicles. Indian HEIs, to which typically thousands of students and other campus communities commute, must contribute to reducing transport-related emissions to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis. Many HEIs in India can turn unused and degraded parts of their campuses into biodiversity-rich areas by local tree-planting initiatives, aligning with SDG 15 (life and land) and campuses can become testbeds for sustainability innovations and mentor the next generation of environmental leaders. , scientists and policymakers.
Additionally, HEIs must engage with local communities and drive sustainability in the broader context of local environmental challenges.
Why does this matter? By embedding campus sustainability efforts and research in local contexts, they can ensure that these initiatives are culturally relevant and likely to be adopted and sustained by local communities. The true purpose of such jointly created knowledge would be to achieve real changes in the world. HEIs can indeed build a bridge between the knowledge created by their teachers and students and the use of this knowledge by local communities and governments. It is crucial to have the local community’s willingness to accept the consequences of new knowledge created in HEIs regarding sustainable practices. This also entails the HEIs converging the local community’s concerns into their research. There could be no better approach than involving people through consensus at the community and institutional level to bring positive changes in the social structures in which science is practiced.
Therefore, one of the effective ways in which HEIs can scale sustainability initiatives is to partner with communities around their campuses and educate both students and local communities on sustainability practices. Such collaborations will be valuable learning opportunities for students to gain practical insights into real-world sustainability challenges. The undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum frameworks issued by the University Grants Commission (UGC) allow students to earn credits from such community outreach activities. By reconceptualising how they interact with local communities, they can use the surrounding areas around their campuses as real-world laboratories. HEIs should partner with local authorities and private industries to pool resources together to ensure that such activities are adequately funded for scaling up.
HEIs must incorporate sustainability as a strategy in their institutional development plan by committing themselves to eco-friendly construction of their buildings, integrating sustainability into university practices and policies, and introducing climate-crisis education in multi-disciplinary programs to provide students with the knowledge to understand complex climate-related issues. Experts must be drawn from not only scientific disciplines but also from social sciences, philosophy, economics, and psychology. Historically, natural sciences or technology have dominated sustainability studies, leading to oversimplified approaches to realizing sustainability. However, human-nature relations are best understood when natural sciences work together with social sciences.
In the context of sustainability, UGC has already issued Guidelines and Curriculum Framework for Environment Education in HEIs. HEI-heads must proactively adopt these and incorporate the principles of SDGs into their curricula. UGC guidelines emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary learning enabling students to address the complex, interconnected environmental challenges outlined in the Rio Conventions, making them particularly relevant in the current context of environmental challenges. Many universities have hitherto largely ignored such guidelines. Even though some HEIs are attempting to implement these guidelines, a lack of interest by many is a cause for concern and can profoundly hinder our far-reaching goal of transforming our HEIs into carbon-neutral campuses by 2047.
Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar is chairman, UGC, and former vice-chancellor, JNU. The views expressed are personal
