Business schools across the country are gearing up for a greener furture — setting up the infrastructure for recycling waste and reducing carbon footprint.
From simple steps like planting more trees every year and using energy efficient bulbs, the institutes are taking up projects to install solar panels for their energy requirements or rainwater harvesting to save water. They are ensuring that the campuses become more sustainable for the future.
Indian Institute of Bangalore (IIM-B), for instance, has cut its water bills to a great extent by judicious water management practices.
“We are into rainwater harvesting as part of our overall water management system. This will reduce our utility bills for water and electricity” We are also driving a programme of recharging groundwater (recharge wells in Phase I around 22nos each having capacity of 16KL) which will help us manage and sustain groundwater as a local source of water,” said Sankarshan Basu, faculty, IIM-B.
Other initiatives taken by IIM-B for reducing costs and sustaining environment include using biological blocks for urinals that reduces flushing water, solid waste management by using dry leaves, bio-gas plant using available canteen waste, steam generation for cooking in hostel canteen using solar heat, replacing CFL lamps with LED lamps in classrooms, replacing 40 watts tube lights with energy efficient T5 lamps and providing solar water heaters for residences and hostels.
The Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) is also doing its bit for the environment. Recently, IIT-B, as part of its Green Campus Initiative, created a vermi-culture facility on its campus. The facility will use deep burrowing indigenous worms making for a healthy environment and cater to 24 families wherein all wet garbage can be recycled and turned into usable manure. The institute can either use it in its own campus or sell it. In the IIT Bombay campus, the hostels are set to compete in a green initiative and the best will be crowned the “most energy saving hostel” of the year.
Rooting for the green cause is another B-school, Universal Business School (UBS), coming up near Karjat, Mumbai. UBS, among other things, is building two dams to increase the water table in the region. It has also planned to get all its students undertake a project on ecological issues, as a part of their curriculum and to understand its value.
“Our architects will construct two bunds and establish two mini lakes, where rainwater can be harvested. This will help raise the water table in the surrounding areas. Our team has also designed the buildings in a manner where natural breeze forms a ‘tunnel effect’, for natural cooling of the common areas,” said Gurdip Singh Anand, principal founder and chairman, UBS.
“Apart from this we are in the process of planting 10,000 trees. We have also got in touch with certain petroleum companies to explore a partnership with them in counselling the village folk in the vicinity to stop their daily practice of chopping wood from the hillside and switch to LPG cylinders at a subsidised rate. UBS also plans to use solar energy for their peripheral lighting,” he said.
At IIM Lucknow (IIM-L) and IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A), rain water harvesting, use of solar energy and tree plantation initiatives are also on.
The IIM-L campus, spread over 200 acres of green area takes up plantations in the vacant patches. The institute has also taken up water conservation through different water harvesting means.
IIM Kozhikode (IIM-K) boasts of a sustainable rain-water harvesting mechanism to service the needs of the 96-acre hill-top campus which otherwise would face a water-crisis between the months of January and June.
The average consumption of water for IIM Kozhikode is well beyond one lakh liters per day, which is serviced by its rain-water harvesting mechanism.
