Emphasizing the need for people to play an active role in increasing the green cover in Puducherry, Chief Minister N. Rangasamy said that educational institutions and industries often take steps to reduce the waste produced on their campus and increase the green cover, but these institutions need to look beyond their own campuses and help improve the surroundings as well.
“Rather than looking only to the government to implement projects that would improve the environment, educational institutions, industries and the common man also need to take initiatives and realize that they have a role to play,” he said speaking at the Green Campus Summit 2013 here on Thursday.
In the past few years, there has been a significant reduction in the green cover and an increase in pollution. It is extremely important that schools and colleges have a green cover. Given the decrease, it is very important that Puducherry take steps to increase the number of trees in the town area, he added.
In terms of water pollution, he said there were several industries in the UT and that, of late, there had been complaints of poor water quality because of water pollution. Industries need to ensure that they do not pollute the water any further, he said.
Speaking at the function, Vice Chancellor of Pondicherry University Chandra Krishnamurthy said it was the duty of universities and educational institutions to ensure that they bring down their wastage to zero. They all need to use renewable and reusable energy to ensure that they maintain a clean and green environment, she said.
The two-day summit featured speakers from fifty countries around the world and will provide universities and higher educational institutions a platform to present their work on campus greening. During the function, educational institutions were given awards for their green innovations, a release said.
The Green Campus Summit was jointly organized by APSCC, Pondicherry University, Government of Puducherry, Puducherry Pollution Control Committee, the London Metropolitan University and the Hamburg University of Applied Science.
nable development; to assess progress towards internationally agreed goals on sustainable development and to address new and emerging challenges. The Summit focussed on two specific themes: a green economy in the context of poverty eradication and sustainable development, and an institutional framework for sustainable development. UNCSD offered a unique opportunity to also discuss the extent to which universities have been providing a meaningful contribution towards the efforts in shaping a better world and, perhaps more importantly, to discuss what else remains to be done. It is against this background that the “World Symposium on Sustainable Development at Universities” (WSSD-U-2012) was organised by the Research and Transfer Centre “Applications of Life Sciences” of the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, under the auspices of the RCE Hamburg and Region. The RCE Hamburg and Region was part of a global network of Regional Centres of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development (RCEs) coordinated by the United Nations University
ut not least, a further aim of the event will be to document and disseminate the wealth of experiences available today. To this purpose, a special issue of the “International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education (IJSHE) with selected papers from the conference will be produced. Furthermore, the book “Sustainable Development at Universities: New Horizons” will be published, with a further set of papers. This will be volume 33 of the award-winning book series “Environmental Education, Communication and Sustainability” (Peter Lang Scientific Publishers), which since its creation in 1998 has become the world´s longest running book series on education and communication on sustainable development.