Providence Women’s College - India

What is the name of your institution?

Providence Women’s College, Kozhikode, Kerala, India

Why did you sign up to the Race to Zero for Universities and Colleges?

• The Institution strategic plan envisages to pursue the global sustainable development goals, and thus imperative that we contribute to the reduction of Carbon emissions
• This journey has to be a global ‘race’, if we need to deal with impact of climate change on the planet, hence joined the Race to Zero initiative

What have you achieved since you have joined the Race to Zero for Universities and Colleges? 

• The institution has taken up Green audit, Energy audit and Environment audit, as a self assessment of our impact.
• The campus is switching over to Solar energy as an alternate source, in a phased manner
• Waste management and composting mechanisms have been installed
• Rain water harvesting and storage system is in place
• Planting on campus, in adopted schools, popularising medicinal plants, etc has been intensified.
• Since student vehicles outnumber the staff vehicles, students’ vehicles have been prohibited entry inside the campus, this would reduce the emissions significantly.

How are you leading the transition to net-zero? Consider the Leadership Practices and how you are engaging others to join the Race to Zero for Universities and Colleges or other Race to Zero campaigns.

• The college has identified its Best Practices, and Lakshya – The Pursuance of SDG goals is one of them
• All departments are channelling their activities so as to reflect one of the 17 SDGs.
• An example is the learning process outside the classrooms, for a better understanding of the life forms in water etc
• The Internal Quality Assurance Cell, monitors and suggests programs, as well as documents the activities periodically
• Tree mapping projects – to map the existing trees, Planting drives – to ensure greening up of the planet etc are some of the green initiatives.
• Solar energy sources are being popularized and awareness workshops of assembling solar lamps are also being organized, for the students and people of the community.
• Awareness seminars, webinars are being arranged to all sections of the society

What challenges have you had?

Engaging students fully into activities, make them compromise on academic matters. Hence unless universities come to a consensus of earning credits through such relevant activities, students hesitate to give their best efforts for saving the planet

Transition of complete dependence on solar energy, is expensive and hence hindering the efforts to do so

Vision of constructing all new buildings into ‘smart or energy efficient’ buildings also is hampered by exorbitant investment requirements

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