Neha.Bhatia@timesgroup.com

The 8th edition of EarthCare Awards (ECA), ajoint initiative of The

Times of India and the JSWGroup, was organisedrecently in the national cap-ital to recognise the effortsof individuals, communitygroups and corporations tosafeguard the ecosystem.The ECA recognise, verify,and promote the replicableinitiatives and interventionson the greenhouse gasses(GHG) emission reduction,natural resource conserva-tion, energy efficiencyimprovement, developmentand promotion of innovativeeco-friendly alternativesacross various sectors ofdevelopment..

This year nine entities outof nearly 250 applicantswere presented with theawards under four broadcategories - leadership inurban climate action, com-munity; industry (green-house gas mitigation bylarge enterprises) and inno-vation for climate protec-tion. The awards are techni-cally supported by knowl-edge partner Centre forEnvironment Education(CEE) and outreach partnerTechnology, Education,Research and Rehabilitationfor the Environment

(TERRE).The awardees were

selected by a panel of 11distinguished jury mem-bers, including eminent sci-entist R A Mashelkar, FRS,President, Global ResearchAlliance; ChandraBhushan, Deputy DirectorGeneral, CSE; Kartikeya V.Sarabhai, Founder Director,CEE; Dr. Suhas Wani,Director, ICRISAT Develop-ment Centre; Rajendra

Shende Chairperson,TERRE; Dr. Ajay Mathur,Director General of TERI;Aneeta Benninger, Execu-tive Director, CDSA; RaviSingh, Secretary General &CEO of WWF-India; RajatGupta, Director, McKinseyand Company; SeemaArora, Dy. Director General,

CII, and Dr Rakesh Kr.Singh, Director of NationalE.E.R. Institute.

Talking about the awards,Mashelkar said, "Whatinterests me most is theexponential growth in thenumber of applications; itactually shows the enthusi-asm around these awardsand the prestige that theyhold. We are not just limitedto being national, but nowwe have applications from

South Asia. The kind ofareas that people are touch-ing and how they are con-centrating on not just thecause but consequences iscommendable."

Quoting Mashelkar, whosaid, "Let this not be anevent, but a movement",Sangita Jindal, chairperson,

JSW Foundation sharedabout the journey so far, "Iam proud to announce thatthis year we have receivedapplications from not onlyIndia but also additionalfour Asian countries; Japan,Bangaladesh, Nepal and SriLanka. This year awardeeshave demonstrated unques-tionable stewardship intheir respective fields andgeographies. While theircommitment deserves ourwholehearted support andencouragement, I wouldalso like to thank theesteemed jury for their wis-dom and efforts. I look for-ward to taking the EarthCare Awards movementworldwide."

Highlighting the fact thatit is no longer sufficient tofocus only on economicgrowth but also on buildinga fairer and more equalsociety along with a saferand prosperous planet, RajJain, CEO, Times Group,said, "With the 8th edition ofthe ECA, The Times of Indiaand JSW have once againinvested in leading themovement towards makingEarth a greener and sus-tainable habitat. We arerecognising the initiativesand inventions in climatechange, greenhouse gasemission reduction, naturalresource conservation,energy efficiency improve-ment and promotion of

innovative eco-friendlyalternatives across sectorsof development."

The chief guest of theevening, Dr Harsh Vardhan,Union Minister for Science& Technology, Earth Sci-ences, Environment,Forests and ClimateChange, emphasised thattaking care of our environ-ment is not a technicalissue but a moral issue."We need to develop amovement around positiveactions in this country andensure that we are able toeducate and motivate each

one of us. My ministry hadbrainstormed with policy-makers and experts to comeout with a list of over 500positive actions - GreenGood Deeds - which can beadopted by people to savethe environment."

Actress Juhi Chawla, alsopresent at the ceremony,agreed wholly to the minis-ter's idea of green goodresponsibility and suggest-ed to involve young childrenfor the cause. "We shouldaim to involve school chil-dren in building societalmovement such as Green

Good Deeds. It should be apart of our syllabus," shesaid. Chawla also under-lined the need to shareideas to grow richer.

Present on the occasionwas UNDP country directorin India Marina Walter. Theevent also saw an interac-tive panel discussion on thetheme, Addressing ClimateChange & Meeting the Sus-tainable DevelopmentGoals’. The panelists, DrSuman Majumdar, Kar-tikeya Sarabhai, SeemaArora, Chandrabhushanand Ravi Singh, exploredthe differential effects of cli-mate change and the abilityof populations to mitigateand adapt to the negativeconsequences of climatechange.

The programme also sawthe release of ClimateAction Stories, a bookrecognising the efforts ofleaders in climate changemitigation by the minister,along with Juhi Chawla,Sangita Jindal and UNDPcountry director in IndiaMarina Walter.

I feel privileged to have the kind ofjury that we have and the kind of dili-gence that has gone into theprocess. What interests me the mostis the exponential growth in thenumber of applications. It actuallyshows the enthusiasm around theseawards and the prestige that theyhold. We are not just limited to beingnational, but now we have applica-tions from South Asia. The kind ofareas that people are touching, howthey are concentrating on not justthe cause but consequences, is com-mendable. ECA have now becomesomething that has global recogni-tion.

R A Mashelkar, F.R.S.President, Global Research Alliance

What is most significant about thisawards is the fact that how differentorganisations; industry, government,NGOs, media, financial institutions,

can seamlessly work together for acause. I must congratulate JSW andThe Times of India for having theforesight to put something like thistogether.

Kartekeya SarabhaiFounder Director,

Centre for Environment Education

Being on the jury of Earth CareAwards 2018 was an exploratoryexperience. The key take away wasthis: the innovative and award win-ning solutions to the challenge of cli-mate change can take place even inthe remotest and the difficult ter-rains like Ladakh, Kutch Rajasthanand South West Bangladesh if thereis commitment.

Rajendra ShendeChairman TERRE Policy Centre

The biggest takeaway is that thereare lots of innovations and initiatives

being taken in a large number offields across the country. This edi-tion of the ECA itself is a testimonyto this. The future of the award is notonly to keep bringing these inspiringworks to the public but also to dosome work on mainstreaming themthrough policy and practice changes.

Chandra BhushanDeputy Director General

Centre for Science and Environment

The enhanced awareness of whatgood work is being done in my coun-try and some of the other neighbour-ing nations underlines the belief inourselves and for concerted action.ECA should create special cate-gories of the 'innovations usingsmart technologies' and 'Youth/Stu-dent Categories'

Ravi SinghSecretary General & CEO

WWF-India

The awards are showcasing amazingcommunity efforts and innovations. Isee these awards having greatimpact; we will look back at them in10 years and appreciate the differ-ence made by making the winnersvisible, thus helping many to scale.

Rajat GuptaDirector, McKinsey and Company

The main thing to recognise here isthat business as usual will not work.As long as we remain in the mindsetthat whatever we are doing is fine,change is not going to happen. Oncewe accept this fact, a lot of harddecisions which we shy away fromwill be taken. We need to partici-pate, take ownership and create theownership that we want to be a partof.

Seema AroraDy. Director General, CII

Several teams in Godrej have workedearnestly to sustain this ecosystem, tospread awareness and to researchabout it. It is about 1300 acres ofmangroves. It is one of the rarestoccurrences in the world to have man-groves in the middle of a city. Morethan anything else, preservation ofthese mangroves is essential becausethey are the beginning of life in thesea and they prevent flooding and forother such sustainable reasons.

Smita Godrej CrishnaGodrej & Boyce Mfg Co Ltd

After the implementation of thisplan, the mortality in the city ofAhmedabad has gone down by 30-40per cent when the heat wave comesand the temperature goes beyond 45degrees. We just hope that all citiesand rural areas adapt this heataction plan on a wider scale so thatwe can save thousands of lives in avery short period of time.

Dr S C BHAN IMD

This recognition is for 19,000 peoplewho work with us. With the help ofSarthak Karmis (rag pickers) andgarbage dealers, polythene waste iscollected and transported to be usedas fuel in cement plants. Together wetackle complex issues like burning ofplastic and disrespect for the localrag pickers while aiming at a sus-tainable business model.

Imitiaz AliSarthak Samudayk Vikas Evam

Janklyan Sanstha, Bhopal

I wish to assure that all the ecologi-cal units that we have in the countrytoday, 10 of them would continue tocontribute towards the cause of glob-al warming in the best possible man-ner. The Territorial Army will also beactively involved with the NationalMission for Clean Ganga wherein weare in the process of raising one unitin Allahabad.

Brig DS Chauhan128 IF BN (TA) ECO RAJ RIF

South-west Bangladesh is one of thepoorest regions of the country whereextreme poverty and adverse impactof climate change are the harsh real-ities of life. We support farmers andworkers to adopt global sustainabili-ty standards and ecosystem-basedagricultural practices in livestock,horticulture and fisheries to improveproductivity and quality. This willcreate availability and access tonutritious food for the rapidly-grow-

ing population in Bangladesh. I amglad that it has led to sustainablelivelihood of more than 55,000 fami-lies in the region. They have nowstarted exporting their products, too.I hope to expand our role to otherregions in the area.

Mr. SelimSolidaridad

Working with the community, wemake sure to involve them right fromthe first step. It is important to makethem a part of the initial planningand take them till the end. We involvethe community and make them theowner of the activity. We create own-ership in them. And this ownershipleads to the success of the project.

J S GosaliaVivekanand Research and Training

Institute, Kutch

Total green cover in Ladakh is 0.06per cent whereas the country hasabout 11-13 per cent. It is almostnegligible. We plan to take this num-ber to one per cent in the comingyears. Initially it was difficult to con-vince the locals as they were veryskeptical but after they saw us work-ing for more than two years, theygave up their resistance and joinedus.

M L MantooLadakh Farmers & Producers

Cooperative Ltd

It's been more than five decades thatwe have been working not only todrive significant adoption of renew-able sources of energy but alsoimproving access to clean energy. Itis essential to conserve and use thefive elements: earth, water, air, fireand space judiciously for sustainablegrowth.

Bhagwat Nandan SevadaSocial Work and Research Centre

Barefoot College & PrayatnaSansthan

Our unit is a 45-year-old fertiliserplant and we follow the culture tomodify our processes to save energy.As a result, our usage of per tonne ofurea has come down drastically. Wehave reduced CO2 emissions to thetune of 350 tonnes per day. Not onlythat, we have also reduced thesteam consumption resulting inbringing down water consumptiondrastically.

D G Inamdar IFFCO, Kalol Unit

(As told to Neha Bhatia Sareen)

THE AWARDEES TALK ABOUT THEIR CRUSADE FOR THESUSTENANCE OF THE ECOSYSTEM

WINNING POINTS

Toast to the green warriors

Climate Action Stories being released at the event

128 INF BN (Territorial Army) Eco Rajputana Riflesawarded

The development and implementation of the First HeatAction Plan in the country was awarded

Barefoot College and Prayatna Sansthan awarded fortheir innovative training module

D G Inamdar and M Mohan receiving the award on behalfof IFFCO, Kalol unit

The Ladakh Integrated Agriculture Development awardedfor their process innovation

Solidaridad Network Asia Limited awarded for thepositive impacts of SaFaL project

Smita Godrej Crishna taking the award on behalf of Godrej& Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd.

Imtiaz Ali and SM Ali were commended for their workunder Sarthak

J S Gosalia, M L Baraiya and S K Paregi from VRTI, Kutch,Gujarat, received commendation

The panelists discussing the critical issues of climate change

THE TIMES OF INDIA, NEW DELH, FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2018

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Earth Care Awardsrecogniseindividuals,community groupsand corporationsfor their endeavourtowards climatechange mitigation

Where everything fails, motivation helps. You need to acknowledge and you need torecognise the good work of anybody, even if it is in a modest way. And if your work is recog-nised in a public platform like the Earth Care Awards, it gives you encouragement and theenthusiasm to put your heart and soul in the work you are doing. Sometimes these pro-grammes have more potential to inspire others than the work government is doing. The worldis looking with a lot of hopes and I am sure we have the potential to take the environmentalprotection movement to greater heights.

Dr HARSH VARDHAN, Union Minister for Science & Technology,Earth Sciences, Environment, Forests and Climate Change

The journey that has brought us to this 8th edition of ECA has been an enriching one. Ithas been absolutely delightful to see this project grow from about 50 applications in the firsttwo years to nearly 250 applications in the last two years. And with the dedicated guidance ofour learned jury members, we have been able to refine the initiative year on year, building it tothe stature it has today.

SANGITA JINDAL, Chairperson, JSW Foundation

We need to make the younger generation mindful of things they are using. We need tomake them realise the importance of things; we need to teach them the values rather thanjust the concepts. Our ancestors gave us a lot of learned things and perhaps we need to bringback these wonderful ideas to our children. Then instead of struggling with environmentalissues, we would be flourishing in them.

JUHI CHAWLA, Bollywood actress

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