The 2nd August Programs....

Eco Walk: Organised by Architect Rajiv at 7.45 AM 9 AM at Theosophical Society
This is a very interesting Eco walk where Mr. Arun of Krishna Murthy Foundation will be guiding the team of Children as well as the members to introduce Trees at the ancient Theosophical Society to bring the Nature close to us. It will be very interesting and informative and I am sure that the kids are going to love it.
We need confirmation on this, please confirm as we have to specify the number of people who are attending this eco walk as Theosophical Society is very strict on this. Rajiv has gone great lengths to get this for us and our kids.

Business meeting: The program is to have our meeting at 4 PM - 6PM as usual in Haworth Office as per the address below...
1B, First Floor
Heavitree # 47, Spurtank Road
Chetpet, Chennai 600 031

The First point of agenda is presentation by Mr. Jha to discuss the Article of Memorandaum (as attached) about the sturutre of the organisation etc, where Mr. Jha has been able to get some one from his team of advocates to prepare. Mr. Jha will be presenting the same to the team for the discussion and finalisation. It will be great if the team can go through the same and come up with their advice and inputs so that we can save the time of members.

Second is on the Action Points II that we have decided to take on as discussed earlier as given below...

1) Eco Walk: Rajiv (Job Well done by Rajiv and hence we are having this Eco Walk in the morning for the members along with the kids.
2) Green Chennai Index: Biju, Kavita and Anand (Need Volunteers - Please join in)
3) Green Citizen Index: Rajiv, Sunil and Shashi (Need Volunteers - Please join in)
4) Vegetable Waste management: Kavita, Jha Ji and Shashi (Need Volunteers - Please join in)
5) Green Chennai Website: The website was decided to be put up but as things are not yet ready on the organizational front, this will be taken up in the next meeting with the date and venue for the inauguration (Need Volunteers - Please join in)
6) Tree Plantation – Sunil and Jha Ji (Need Volunteers - Please join in)
7) Arrange Lectures – Swahilya (Need Volunteers - Please join in)
8) Water front Revitalization – Kishore and Biju (Need Volunteers - Please join in)
9) Get more people involved - This is very crucial please get more people into the forum - INTRODUCE more passionate people to the group
10) To form a corpus of funds - Lets think how we can do it
11) Members should be atleast adopting some eco-friendly practice and try to project it to others around them - what you have done lately???
12) Reach out to the people already doing green works and the people involved in the same to join hands with them or learn from them - Chip in with info and network

Shashi

2nd Minutes of the meeting ...

There was a general discussion on the type of things that are happening. Raj shared the Traffic and Transport model of Bangalore city with formal agreement with the Govt and what he is doing in Adyar for the pedestrian. He shared that one needs to involve more and more people.
Architect Rajiv shared his thoughts that through the children many things can be changed. He shared his passion for working with children and do things addressed to common people.
1) Roles and Structure
It was generally decided that the organizational structure of the forum should be a main body of president, vice president, secretary and treasurer as normally is the case with such organizations. But the Green Chennai forum will be functioning as per the focus groups or units which will be doing things that are required and those units will be independently working on the each individual projects.

2) Types of the projects
The discussion on the project went on to some lengthy discussion and it was generally agreed that the group should start with some small programs. Each one, who would like to do something or what they are passionate about, should come forward and present it to the group and ask for any volunteers within the group. This way one can go ahead with some project immediately which is required for the group to bond together. Every one was asked to say what they would like to do and the group was asked to come forward with volunteers for the task.

a. Eco Walk: Rajiv came up with the idea that he would like most to take this concept of green to the children and he emphasizes that kids are the most important change agents. If we can reach out to the children we can take this to the people. He volunteered to take the children out for an Eco Walk to bring them close to the nature and make them understand the value of the nature. It was decided that we can actually have the next meeting in some natural surroundings where the children can also join and the meeting can happen after the tour.
b. Green Chennai Index: It was generally agreed by all the people that this Green Chennai concept is a vast area and encompasses almost everything under the sun. Hence Biju put forth the idea that why not first let’s define what is Green Chennai? He volunteered to take up the task of indexing the things that will define the concept with an advice that it will take lot of time and effort to do so. Kavita and Anand joined the focus group to take up this work.
c. Green Citizen Index: It was decided to also index what is green citizen on the lines of LEED certification. This will become the basis of providing points and also certifying each individual action of the members as being green. Rajiv, Sunil and Shashi joined this focus group of Indexing Green Citizen.
d. Vegetable Waste management: Kavita informed of the work that they are doing in Mylapore on the Vermi-composting and segregation of vegetable waste. She shared her challenge in terms of getting some piece of land to do the composting. Mr. Jha came forward to help her getting the piece of land and this project was taken up as one of the project of the forum. Shashi also volunteered to help in the same.
e. Green Chennai Website: The website was decided to be put up but as things are not yet ready on the organizational front, this will be taken up in the next meeting with the date and venue for the inauguration.
f. Tree Plantation – Sunil shared his passion for the tree plantation and Mr. Jha informed that there is one Govt Officer Mr. Sudeep Jain, who has done a great job there. It was decided to take this up in the forum and team is looking for the volunteers on the same.
g. Arrange Lectures – Swahilya informed that as a professional speaker and journalist she would like to arrange for lectures and presentations. She will be preparing the same and bring out a schedule for the lectures in the next meeting.
h. Water front Revitalization – Kishore shared that he would really like to take up the water front of the two rivers that criss cross the city and Kavita informed that she also wanted to put the same for her class in the Annan University. Kishore will be supported by Biju and look forward to the support of the team members


3) There was various other discussions happened on the side lines and the following points are to be noted.
a. Get more people involved. Hariharan, Rajiv, Sunil and others voiced their concern about increasing the membership. It was decided to actively look forward to more members
b. Rajiv voiced the opinion that we should be targeting people’s pride to change the way they think about being green. The Green Citizen Index was decided to be one such measure.
c. The structure of the group should be on the paper for various regulatory needs but it should not be typically binding one as this group will be loosely held by the activities rather than the structure.
d. There is a need to form a corpus of funds to keep the group from going strength to strength. Members decided to actively bring their thoughts on the same
e. The accountability of the projects should rest with the person who has taken the project in his ownership. It was agreed that once that is in place, the activities can be easily co-ordinated.
f. It was decided that the members should be atleast adopting some eco-friendly practice and try to project it to others around them.
g. Reach out to the people aready doing green works and the people involved in the same to join hands with them or learn from them.
h. Plantation of trees should be taken up as one of the task. Sunil shared his passion for the same and we hope to have this going forward in the next meeting.
4) Action Points II
a. Mr. Rajiv to plan for the eco walk as the venue for the next meeting on Saturday, 2nd August
b. Preparation of Modular Constitution and Structure of the group to be done by Mr. Jha and to brought up for the approval in the next meeting
c. Various Projects

5) The second meeting:
a. Date:
2nd August, 2008
b. Venue:
Tentatively fixed at theosophical society
Time: 4 PM – 6 PM
This is going to be interesting meeting as its organized along with an eco walk by Rajiv. Every member is required to bring his/her kids for the same.

Plan New York 2030 : Indexing Green City - by Ar Biju of ArchitectureRED

Below is the link for the PLANNYC website. The report is available on the website in pdf format. You should be able to download it from there. Go through the website in detail. It talks about both small initiatives and the larger vision. Both are very critical for the effective implementation of sustainable initiatives.
Home: http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/html/home/home.shtml
Reports: http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/html/downloads/download.shtml

Cheers-

Biju Kuriakose
partner
architectureRED

First steps on Green Citizens Indexing... by Sunil of C&W

I came across this nice e-book at Morgan Stanley website, “Little Green Book” - 50 things you can do to GREEN your life and I feel it’s worth sharing with all of you.
Here is the link-
http://www.morganstanley.com/about/community/littlegreenebook/
After you open the link, click or drag the corners of the book to flip the pages.

I hope this is useful in the aspect of indexing. First Step I guess… atleast from me

Regards,
Sunil

My green thumb

Anahata - The heart chakra is green!

Having written for over 15 years on environmental and ecological issues and everything else about the planet as our beautiful home, I recently made a shift to writing primarily on spirituality, Yoga and Meditation, basically focussing on Awareness.

All along I was talking of Ecological Awareness, Environmental Awareness, Health Awareness, Social Awareness, History Awareness, Population Awareness, Civic Awareness.....The list is endless. Now I learnt that the key to it all is awareness.

My heart still lies with writing on environment and ecology and the invitation to this blog has indeed come as a godsend!

Green Chennai has got a lot to it than just trees. But yet, a healthy canopy of trees is indeed a great indicator of the city's health. As one who practises Yoga, I am aware that Green is also the colour of the Anahata Chakra or the Heart Centre. The more green we see around us, the more love and compassion there is. The more love and compassion there is, it is the basis for a peaceful, joyous and prosperous living too.

I am a great believer in dreams and visualisation. Vikalpa or Imagination is again another technique in Yoga. It is giving a positive use to the capacity of the mind to imagine and visualise. I invite you to visualise with me - A Chennai that has a thick green canopy, with enough space for adequate sunlight to stream through the leaves, a Chennai where the roads are well laid, neat and clean, with adequate pavement space for pedestrian safety, a track exclusively for cyclists where we see many students and office goers on a bicycle driving safely, a zero garbage city where the bio-degradable wastes go back to its source, the Earth, plastics get recycled, paper goes for recycling after maximum reuse, glass is put back to be made again as glass, cloth, rags and other compostable materials get composted as manure, electronic waste and unusable junk and batteries and hazardous wastes get disposed in a scientific and sanitary landfill, all the city dwellers get pure drinking water comfortably through the taps, the rain water is harvested well and makes the soil fertile, all vacant land is covered with some form of greenery, the canals and rivers are gushing with pure water fit for bathing and drinking (I know it is difficult to imagine, but 10 million imaginations can make it a reality, believe me!), beaches, parks and public spaces are recreation centres that are clean, neat and tidy as if they were an extension of our homes, our power is just a supplement to all the solar energy we harvest, cars, bikes and automobiles are moving in a silent atmosphere, fuel efficient and with zero pollution and everybody in the City is so ecologically conscious that Chennai shines like a bright light setting an example for the whole country and the world. - Swahilya Shambhavi. (swahilya.soulmate@gmail.com)

Picture: An oasis in Nungambakkam where I lived for nearly two years!

Organisational inputs from Arch Biju...

Some inputs from Arch Subbiah...

My thoughts on Green Chennai - Our initial measures / First baby steps

"Say No to Plastic" - For future use (Drive against usage / reduction in Usage of Plastic in day to day life)
"Say Yes to Plastic" - USe already produced plastic and prevent it from adding to the pollution.

The plans of "Green Chennai"

This is a response to the action points that we have had in the firsr meeting...
Action Point: What the Green Chennai Forum should do?
One Response from a member:

Personal Green Life Style
- Become Green, do at least one thing green consistently
- Start the campaign for individual house lights to be changed to CFL
- Use own bags for shopping
- Start using bicycle more often
- Work from house once in a month, if you can
- Reduce the AC use increase the temp
- Switch off computers, TV (Switch off from the source not by remote to avoid energy runoff) lights etc.
- Create an awareness among your friends and your sphere of influence

Personal sphere of influence
- Work towards making your surroundings sustainable
- Create awareness
- Be an agent of change, suggest green ideas and sustainable concepts, implement ideas
- Start Car pooling and other such energy saving acts
- Start influencing the colleagues and management to think green, involve them in any such forum which is thinking green (Prefer it to Green Chennai forum but its your choice)

“Green Chennai Forum”
- Increase Membership in the Forum and influence the right and passionate individuals to join in the Forum
- Drive towards making a corpus of funds to sustain the sustainability drive
The Sustainability Drive in my opinion should be in the following areas to begin with
a. To create awareness
· Reach out to Industrial houses, Organize seminars to showcase their adverse carbon foot print and if possible change
· Lowering energy consumption of high user group
· Global Warming causes
· Being a green citizen and living a green life style
b. Reaching out to the Key stake holders like Corporate groups, Manufacturers, Industries, Infrastructure developers,
· to partner with them to bring about a green change in their own premises
· Work out a program to have seminars, discussion groups, email campaigns, white papers distribution and sharing of actionable concepts and success stories with them.
c. Reaching out to NGO’s, Research Partners and External Technical Bodies like Indian Green Building Council (IGBC)
· To devise standards of being green and promote Green Citizen concept on the lines of LEED certification
· To bring out a practical guide of green life style
· To identify and fund research in these areas
· To reach out to the large fraternity of Green Agents and resources
d. For Public at Large
· Create a web presence to share the ideas thoughts, concepts and create awareness about the group and its activities
· Create large scale events to reach out to masses, publicity campaigns in Print and News Media
· Conduct Competitive events like Essay, Music, Poetry etc among colleges, institutions and corporate
· Partner with Govt agencies to bring about Green Change, if asked for
· Provide resource and consultations for development of large projects
· Influence Large projects to advocate and work on the green and sustainable life style

The Green Chennai initiative...

Concept Paper
Definition of Green Chennai:
“Green Chennai” is forum of like minded people from all walks of life who would deliberate on sustainable ideas and follow up with actions. The forum will strive to promote green and sustainable concepts for the public at large.

The Green Chennai will formulate tasks for making Chennai – a green city and accordingly act to spread knowledge and awareness for and about making a green Chennai – a place working it’s way towards sustainable life aspects. This will be a platform to share ideas, knowledge and create a way for green lifestyle. This forum will interact and partner with various forums having similar ideas to exchange knowledge and concepts so as to reach the objective of making Chennai a green city at the earliest.

The Green Chennai will strive to interact with corporate, organizations, Govt of Tamil Nadu; various NGO’s to promote the concept. It will adopt various innovative methods and technologies to arrive at maximum benefits as well make it scalable to spread the concept to various other cities in India and abroad.

Vision:
To make Chennai totally a green city by 2015

Objective:
To create awareness on
i. Agents of creating Pollution
ii. Lowering energy consumption
iii. Reducing Global Warming causes
iv. Being green

Reaching out to the Key stake holders like
i. Corporate and Employees
ii. Manufacturers
iii. Industries
iv. Infrastructure developers
v. NGO’s
vi. Research Partners
vii. External Technical Bodies like Indian Green Building Council (IGBC)
viii. Concerned Public
Facing Key Stake Holders through
i. Seminars
ii. Discussion Forums
iii. Activities like Green Citizen Concept (Practical Day to Day activity that one individual, employee or any responsible public can do on their own)
iv. Institutionalized Competition like Essay, Music, Poetry etc among colleges
v. Popular Events like Rock Show, Music concerts etc
vi. Internet
vii. Blogging
viii. Email Campaigns etc

Virtual Citizen

Highlights of the Minutes of the meeting of Sustainability Forum

“Green Chennai”
Ist Meeting
1st July, 2008

Minutes of the meeting:
To begin with every one present was introduced to the forum. Each one individually shared the thought and the passion on sustainability and hoped that this forum will go a long way in establishing a sound foundation for the “Green Chennai”
Going further the meeting got down to the business of sharing thoughts….

1) The discussion on the Green Chennai concept was lively and the following points are of note:
a. Govt and Public Space – Role of the Government
Most of the members felt that as this is something encompassing the whole of Chennai city, the role of Govt is vital. As the sustainability is all about Green spaces, energy consumption and mass utilization, its important that Govt should be involved in all this
It was debated that yes, the Govt is required to come up and support but more importantly as we are all passionate about the sustainability and being green, individually we should strive to do something. Once this forum is strong enough to run on its feet, the natural progression will be to reach out to the Govt for the better reach as well as better support with out loosing this forum’s own identity and things that this forum stands for.
b. Arresting Growth or energy consumption
As all the members are acutely aware, the most important thing for this forum is to reduce energy consumption at large. But that does not mean to arrest growth. The world wide debate, about growth and increased energy consumption goes hand in hand, was highlighted. It was discussed that its important to understand that Energy consumption in countries like India are at very low level compared to the developed countries, hence we are actually not the culprit. Most of the members later agreed that although we may not be adding to Global Warming or Green House Gases but it’s a good thing to do and at the end of it we will be facing same problems as the developed world is facing at large now. It’s something that needs to be done and done now. Why we should go the way the other advanced countries went…?
c. Public Infrastructure
Most of us agreed that the public infrastructure has to be developed, Systems like MRTS, Public Transport, AC buses has to be brought in. Concepts like Bicycle lanes, no vehicle days etc has to be started. A city wise master plan needs to be developed too in terms of these amenities and facilities. This forum also realizes that its too early in the day to go to this extent. But it was noted in the meetings that it should be one of the plans for this forum to take it up.

d. Awareness
All the members agreed that the most important aspect to this is to create awareness. It was informed to the meeting that the forum has already booked the domain names for green Chennai; Green Citizen has been booked already.
2) It was discussed to have a road map
a. Projects
i. The members touched upon various projects that this group can take up which is a large list. ii. The members also discussed many interesting concept like how individually one can do things at ones own level to reduce carbon footprint.
b. Arresting the rush for energy consumption
i. It was discussed what and how we can go about arresting the rush for power consumption ii. Popularize the use of public transport and car pooling etc. One of the members said that although its very nice to say to use these measures, but some times it is very impractical. Hence it was discussed to have some practical solutions and innovative measures that this group can come up with.
c. What we can do
i. It was the most important area of discussion for this forum and we all touched upon various things that we can do. In the end it was decided to actually list them out individually and then Shashi can compile the same and discuss in detail in the coming meeting on 15th July
d. Awareness campaigns
i. In schools, in companies, factories through seminars and road shows ii. In media through print and visual media iii. Through online website etc
e. Walkways
The most of the members felt that as they would love to take a bicycle and go about doing shopping or weekend office trips but the roads are not very safe. Most of the members believed that people love to walk but there are no pedestrian walkways. Its believed that if there is actually a good amount of pedestrian walk ways, it will reduce the pressure on the traffic.
3) Vision Discussion
a. Make City better / Live Better
The vision statement / the vision most agreed can be worked upon later. Some felt that the vision “To make Chennai totally a green city by 2015” is tall order, whereas some felt that for any kind of group a catchy phrase actually helps. Another member felt that to have a measurable target in mind helps in achieving the goal. In the end it was decided that we all have thoughts on the same and may be this can be discussed offline (through emails etc) to arrive at some conscious vision statement. It was agreed that in the end its all about making Chennai city better and live better. Its going to be more like a life style statement than a vision statement.

b. Focus
Most of the members felt that concepts like “Being Green” “Sustainability” and “Global Warming” encompasses large canvas it’s required to have in this group a focus. Focus on what one can do and one should strive to achieve. Hence it was discussed to have thoughts from the each individual members on the things that should be done and can be done as well as what one can individually contribute to the group within a week so that this can be discussed offline (on emails or on blogs) and come up to certain conclusion on the upcoming meeting on 15th July.

4) Roles and Structure
Few of the members requested Shashi to clarify the role that Haworth has in all this. Shashi informed the team that his passion for sustainability has sprung only from the focus Haworth, as a Corporation, has towards the sustainability. Haworth believes in being sustainable and supporting sustainable activities. Shashi informed the team that the role of Haworth is of a facilitator only. Although Shashi has been talking, inviting and gathering team of passionate people from different walks of life and the people that he knows, which does not mean that its Haworth Forum. Haworth Chennai is just providing required support to this movement as it believes in being sustainable corporation.

All the members agreed that this forum will not be any one of the organizations propaganda platform although it will continue to seek support, help and guidance from any or all of the member’s organisation as well as any other organisation that it can garner support from.

a. What type of organisation
i. It was discussed to have this forum in some kind of structured organizational structure. One of the members stressed upon the need to have such structure and have that registered in order to go long way. Hence the members were asked to sent their thoughts on the type of structure this forum should have and the same should be finalised in the upcoming meeting on 15th July.
b. What type of structured roles

i. It was requested to all the members to also define the structured roles that this groups should have and send the same on the email
5) Action Points
a. Sent inputs on the following through email to Shashi for compilation and further action

i. What types of projects, activities etc should be done by this forum? ii. Every one is also requested to list out the things that one can individually support on through their own personal involvement or through their own network of friends and acquaintances. iii. What type of the organizational structure that this group should have.

iv. List out the people in you can reach out to, who can be involved in this initiative. Basically these people can be anyone who has the passion for sustainability and the drive to do something for green Chennai.
6) The second meeting:
a. Venue:
Chennai Office
Time: 5 PM – 7 PM
b. Agenda:
i. Introduction of the new members
ii. Special Invitee Presentation on Sustainability (TBD)
iii. Discussion on the progress on the Action point I
iv. To finalise “Green Chennai” Concept
v. Road map finalization
vi. Action point II

Virtual Citizen

The first steps...

It was great to kick off the "Green Chennai initiative" in Chennai and the wonderful discussion that we have had. The kind of enthusiasm that was shown and the passion that was reflected in the meeting, we are sure to make a lot of difference in making the Chennai a Green City.

1) As per the discussion, we realize that there are so many things that can be done in a forum which is focused on sustainability. Hence, it was felt that if we can put in word what should be done by this group of people and then collate the same info to discuss in our next meeting and arrive at do-able things in the immediate, short term and long term plan. Every one was also requested to list out the things that one can individually support on through their own personal involvement or through their own network of friends and acquaintances.

2) What type of the organizational structure that this group should have.

3) List out the people in you can reach out to, who can be involved in this initiative. Basically these people can be anyone who has the passion for sustainability and the drive to do something for green Chennai.

I am sending this email to all the persons that I have approached earlier and who could not make it to the meeting yesterday. I must appreciate the people who specifically took out the time to write / talk to me for their inability to be in yesterday's meeting and promised to be there for the next meeting which is going to be on 15th July.

Virtual Citizen