As the world becomes increasingly aware of environmental and social issues, more educators are opting for curriculums that prioritise sustainability and ethical practices, while encouraging their students to buy products that reflect these priorities.
In a global consumer survey, more than 71 per cent of respondents reported making modest to significant changes to their consumption behaviours to live more sustainably. While this shift in consumer behaviour presents opportunities for businesses, there is a growing need for the younger generation to be sensitised on simple sustainable practices, presenting them with methods minus any obstacles and thereby capturing their interest.
What are the consequences of failing to act now? Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) issues have risen to the top of the corporate agenda in recent years as a confluence of factors from geopolitical tensions to climate change, supply chain disruption to rising stakeholder expectations dominate boardroom conversations. Therefore educating students to be sustainable, helps them also to seek opportunities in this new business landscape.
Four years ago two ‘Old Boys’ from St. Joseph’s Boys High School, Bangalore, started what they called a Sustainability lab - Sustainable Environment Education Foundation (SEEF). This was a series of online workshops with the 11th and 12 standard students of St. Joseph’s Boys’ High School and maginalised schools in the city. It was purely academic, but today’s students are very keen on living sustainable lives themselves. Modules on Rain Water Harvesting, Composting, Growing organic vegetables, a Solar dryer which would make drying for farmers quicker with much less loss and Women’s Menstrual Health were the modules which were handled by various professionals in the field.
But soon Vijay Nazareth and Lloyd Lobo, both who are based in the US, and are Old Boys who spearheaded the program, realised that a hands-on experience would make the lesson much more enjoyable and leave a lasting impression on the students. That's when we decided to give our farm out for free to the programme, to spread the word on sustainability, as the planet is literally gasping for life, on so many different levels.
On our two acre farm in Hoskote we got three large compost pits dug out to give the kids a hands-on experience of turning both garden waste and kitchen waste into compost. Labour was called in and 5 feet deep, rectangular pits were dug and lined with brick. The base of the pits were unlined to allow the leachate (liquid) of the waste to seep into the ground, leaving no smell at all. Composting is a controlled, aerobic (oxygen-required) process that converts organic materials into a nutrient-rich soil mulch through natural decomposition. The end product is compost – a dark, crumbly, earthy-smelling material.
Food scraps like the skins and waste of fruits and veggies — the skin of a sweet potato, the skin of your banana, the rind of the water melon and mango, all can be composted. Additionally, tea bags, coffee grounds, eggshells, dead flowers — even human hair, all make a wonderful compost for your garden or your potted plants. Keeping food out of landfills can help fight climate change, and luckily, it's an easy solution for your home food waste. It doesn't matter if you're in a suburban home or a tiny apartment, it’s so easy to compost your wet waste, rather than throw it into the landfill. This was taught to the kids through zoom classes first, but they wanted to jump into the pits and aerate the waste, to get a feel of the process. In minutes they realised that there was no unclean smell or odour, handling the waste.
Water is a precious, essential and an abiotic component of the ecosystem. Today we all are heading toward the scarcity of freshwater and this is mainly because of the lack of water conservation and pollution of water bodies. So, RWH teaches us not to waste a drop of water and start conserving water for further use.
The process of rainwater harvesting involves the collection and the storage of rainwater with the help of artificially designed systems that collect run off naturally or in man-made catchment areas like- the rooftop, compounds, rock surface, hill slopes, artificially repaired impervious or semi-pervious land surface.
To show them how each home can help themselves get sufficient fresh water, the simple method of Rainwater Harvesting interested them, as without water there IS no life. The usual cry of – “what is the government doing about fresh water supplies?” was voiced by the kids. Taking them around the farm they were amazed with how simple it was to harvest the rain. The fresh rain water that had been channelised from the roof of the little house on the property, into a huge 15 lakh Sintex tank, poured out from a tap, with which they washed their hands and faces.
Injection wells on the property filled up with the overflow, helped raise the water table back to initial levels like magic. The farm was suffering with dried bore wells, but now with concerted RWH, the bore wells had sprung back to life. Not a drop of water falling on the property was lost and all the rain either sank into the soil or was collected in the tanks. There was an initial expense the kids realised, but the positives would pay back, in a matter of a few years. Even the caretaker who has lived on the land for 30 years was thrilled with the results of RWH.
Organic veggies are grown, showing the kids that excellent quality vegetables can be grown with just using the compost from the pits.Brinjals, radish, different varieties of gourd, and ofcourse drum stick and malabar spinach grew well on the land teaching the kids how just a little effort and they could get their own organic vegetables. Sambhar with the spinach or radish is cooked infront of the kids, on a small gas burner and all get a taste of freshly cooked veggies in sambhar. To round off their meal they get bananas and automatically they learn how to take the skins to the pits to turn into compost.
Sustainability is one of the most popular lifestyle choices of the past decade and will hopefully become second-nature to us all in the coming years. As we transition from lives of convenience and fast-fashion to lives of environmentally conscious choices, sustainability will continue to permeate almost all of our daily decisions. Sustainable living is achieved by making choices that aim to reduce our individual and collective environmental impact, by making positive changes to offset climate change and reduce environmental damage. It is the perfect way to reduce our carbon footprint and make better use of the Earth’s resources, to minimize the environmental damage that can be caused by our lifestyle choices.
Join us at our learning and innovation centre in Hoskote, which provides the perfect setting for knowledge sharing, networking with peers and exchanging ideas for free. Contact: mde.nazareth@gmail.com
Dr Marianne Furtado de Nazareth is the former assistant editor of The Deccan Herald, and dedicates quality time and effort for sustainable environmental practices.
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