The Foundation has a very active program in the area of conservation and environmental awareness, stemming from its long-standing ethos to bring sustainability to the Indian rural landscape. There are three major projects currently being supported by the Foundation.
The driving force behind the Foundation’s programs is to principally bring awareness to local communities on best practices for a sustainable future. These efforts span education on solid waste disposal, reducing (and eventually eliminating) plastic usage, reducing local emissions of greenhouse gases, and education on the negative outcomes of chemical use in farming.
The Foundation’s work in this area has considerable scope for expansion and positive impact through further general or targeted funding.
The provision of clean and affordable energy for poor households in rural India has become critically important in the fight against poverty and to safeguard the rural environment. The twin conditions of poverty and lack of access to adequate clean energy impose serious challenges in rural India.
The Foundation undertook a major initiative in 2018 to create a model program to expand access to clean energy in a sustainable way. The activities include institutional capacity development to scale energy service delivery to ensure wide coverage in the rural sectors. The use of biomass for energy production through bio fuels has been initiated as a substitute for fossil fuels.
This program also aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from mismanaged burning of agricultural waste, which is instead converted into bio-fuel through a mirco-industrial process that the Foundation has set up in one Sundarbans village. This program has received substantial accolades for excellence in environmental conservation, reducing the demand for firewood as fuel, and creating a micro-industry for employing women to manufacture and distribute biomass briquettes. A further description is given in the Livelihood page of this site.
The Foundation has recently initiated a program under the thematic area of “Farmers for Earth”, which intends to raise awareness, strengthen the capacities of farmers to replace chemical products, and adopt green energy practices.
The objective of this program is to ensure environmentally sound management of agriculture as a way to combat global warming and climate change. The campaign has focused on issues related to the negative outcomes from excessive use of chemical fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides and to raise awareness of green agriculture practices for safeguarding the environment.
