Helping schools take the green leap Sensitising students and staff to be environment-friendly can be a meaningful beginning.

Can schools go green —not with envy — but by being environmentally conscious? They can do so with encouragement and support from the local community, parents’ groups, clubs and socially conscious establishments. You and your friends can help your local school take a green leap forward by exercising your persuasive skills to convince the management, parents and students to turn over a new leaf.

Much of what I will be sharing with you in this column is courtesy of friends who are environmentalists and from the excellent Green Schools Programme of the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). On my part, the effort will be to mark a few pointers on how you could realistically help reduce the carbon footprint and battle climate change. This is necessary because many of us are overwhelmed by the enormity of the task. Consequently, after a few half-hearted attempts at cleaning the neighbourhood park or saying no to plastic, we return guilt-laden from the grocers with a carry bag made of some vile hydrocarbon.

Well, the good news is that your effort can have a long-lasting impact. All you have to do is literally go to your neighbourhood school and kickstart the process. You and your like-minded friends can set the ball rolling by interacting fortnightly or monthly with parents, teachers and students, enlightening them about environmental concerns and how they can join the fight to mitigate climate change. You can perhaps rope in the services of environment experts and organisations committed to the cause. Once you have laid the groundwork, you can nudge the school towards positive action.

So, what is a green school? Simply put, it is an educational institution that becomes healthier for the community and the environment by adopting practices that reduce its carbon footprint, are less polluting and train students to be more environmentally conscious.

Perhaps reducing air pollution could be the first step. Encourage students and teachers to use public transport or the school bus rather than private vehicles. This is easier said than done because we live in a world obsessed with cars. That explains why there is traffic jam every morning and when classes are over for the day outside most schools and on the roads leading up to them.

Students must be made aware that this is a cause for alarm since Indian cities rank among the highest in the WHO database for poor urban air quality. While air pollution can come from several sources, vehicular emissions are considered the most harmful as they adversely impact people’s breathing levels. So, fewer the vehicles on the road, the better.

Your green effort can also focus on school management, which can be sensitised to using well-maintained, less polluting vehicles. Schools must also be advised to minimise burning leaves and paper and ensure adequate exhaust facilities for generators, which must be fuel efficient.

Being energy efficient is critical for a school to become green. You can suggest switching to LED lights. Replacing old bulbs with more efficient lighting that consumes less power can be carried out in phases. The same goes for fans — a conventional one uses 75 watts of power, while those rated as efficient consume less than 35 watts. Similarly, more energy-efficient models of air conditioners, refrigerators and other appliances will weigh on the power bill more mildly than older models.

You can encourage students and staff to conserve energy. Simple things like switching off lights and fans when not in use make a big difference. The same goes for other appliances. Incidentally, we waste about 7–10 per cent of electricity when appliances are in standby mode. Schools can also harness solar power to ease the load on the power grid, save electricity, and reduce the carbon footprint. The government has several subsidy schemes to support solar power adaptation.

Another civic issue that schools need to address is urban waste. According to the Ministry of Urban and Housing Affairs, India generates about 150,000 tonnes of waste daily. This problem can only be solved if a culture of waste management is practised at all levels, from individual households to civic corporations and state governments. Schools can provide excellent educational opportunities to create awareness about waste and its management, and you can initiate or sharpen this process.

However, waste management cannot be understood or implemented by merely speaking to students. It would be best to organise a series of interactive workshops conducted by experts during which concepts like segregating, reusing and recycling waste are explained and demonstrated. Students should be educated about types of waste such as biodegradable, non-­biodegradable, hazardous, non-­hazardous, and e-waste and their ­handling. At a later stage, students can be taught to practise composting.

There are other areas where a school can implement healthy green practices. For example, the food served in schools, either as a midday meal or in the canteen, must be nutritious. You can sensitise students and parents to ensure that canteens are not treated as commercial outlets for serving junk food and aerated drinks. Schools must teach healthy eating habits, and kitchen chefs must be instructed to use wholesome local produce whenever possible. Also, the separation of waste and its disposal by the canteen must be closely monitored, perhaps by a team of students led by a staff member.

These are just a few pointers. Of course, expecting any individual or group to bring about all the changes I have suggested is not pragmatic. However, spreading essential awareness and pushing the school to include a permanent environment training programme in its curriculum could be a meaningful beginning. More information can be sourced from How green is your school, an environmental audit for schools, brought out by the Centre for Science and Environment. It is available online at the CSE store.

Here’s to happy green schools!

The writer is a senior journalist who writes on environmental issues