Nirma University in Ahmedabad celebrated India’s first ever zero carbon footprint event, an International Environment Summit, Chemozale’10 in a new avatar – “Go green or Die Young!!!”
The vagaries of environment and silent uproar of the changing climate endorsed by innumerable climate summits worldwide propelled the chemical engineer in us to do something worthwhile. “Chemozale 2010” an event by Chemical Engineering Student’s Association (ChESA), Nirma University, Ahmedabad was a one of its kind International Techno-Management Symposium that commenced its journey as a thought which was conceived in the year 1999. The seed of ‘Chemozale’ has grown from a tiny sapling to a huge green tree, sown, nurtured and cultivated into nothing less than a marvel.
An idea with the strapline of “the zeal to dream-dare and do” has now grown for 11 years. Nurturing the legacy of our forbearers, this year Chemozale cruised much ahead of our dreams. Customary to our nature we dared to do unconventional and as a result we celebrated India’s first ever zero carbon footprint event, an International Environment Summit, Chemozale’10 in a new avatar – “Go green or Die Young!!!”
Taking a leap in creating awareness about the latest technical advancements, with special reference to “Green technology”, we came up with Environtech’10 a green trade fair, that promoted the use of eco friendly technologies via an exhibition, this was our humble attempt to bridge the gap between the students, academicians and industry professionals. Besides this we also invited school kids to make them aware of the burgeoning stress on environment.
The event had a mindboggling response, more than 1000 participants from around 200 colleges across the nation took part in Chemozale’10, the various events such as paper/poster presentations, business plan competitions and the various environment based workshops were greatly appreciated by all the participants as well as the general audience.
The idea to make this event a “carbon neutral” event bubbled as an idea within the team, and after the preliminary calculations, we approached the Centre for Environment and Development in Kerala to audit our calculations. With their guidance, we assessed our carbon footprint calculation report. Emissions were offset by planting 2500 saplings provided by Gujarat Forest Department on 21st March, World Forest Day and the major species planted were neem, cheenibadam, jamun and saptkarni.
Organising a Paper drive where more than 2 lakh one side blank A4 sheets were collected and turned into bound notebooks for municipal school children and also for carrying out the paperwork for Chemozale’10
Greening the participant’s kit by using complete biodegradable material (Courtesy: Truegreen), and using books and writing pad made from ecofriendly material baggasse (sugarcane leftover), provided by Navneet Publications Pvt Ltd.
Using earthen kullads instead of plastic glasses
Organising Khaki Day with all board members, volunteers and students organizing on the launch of the event to bolster wearing of natural fibre apparel and clothing. They say “Eat to please yourself, Dress to please others”. We dressed to please everyone and drive our point across as well.
In addition, working for the event has in ways, both big and small, influenced the lives of those associated with it. A large majority among us have begun adopting these productive exercises at a domestic level too. The prudent treatment of undesired waste, recycling for a greener cause and the trivial concerns which we often tend to frequently ignore are being well heeded.
We know that using kullads, or wearing khadi would not decrease the CO2 level but still it was something that left an impact in minds of all the participants, just like our paper recycling initiative is now being followed steadily by all the departments of our university. It has made a huge impact on our team giving it a different perspective, and many of them have taken projects on various environmental issues.
The author, Swapnil Agarwal, is a final year chemical engineering undergraduate from Nirma University, Ahmedabad. He is currently serving as the President to Chemical Engineering Students’ Association, Nirma University. His areas of interest include Carbon capture, Dye Solar Cells, MEMS, Entrepreneurship etc., he is a Student member to various international and national organizations such as Society of Petroleum Engineers(SPE), The Indus Entrepreneurs(TiE), Indian Society for Technical Education(ISTE).
Few other initiatives undertaken as a part of the green events were-
Smack-dab what I was lokonig
Smack-dab what I was lokonig for-ty!
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