by Sanjukta Basu Sanjit Roy, popularly known as “Bunker” (his childhood nickname), is the brains and inspiration behind Barefoot College, a path-breaking example of how education can be simplified and yet made relevant for economically deprived and socially backward sections of society. Barefoot College takes in illiterate or semi-illiterate men, women and children, often from remote [...]
Dr Martin Blake was till recently the brains and inspiration behind the award winning Carbon Management Programme at Royal Mail, UK’s biggest postal services company. As Head of Social Responsibility and Sustainability Team at Royal Mail Group Plc for eight years, he oversaw a multi-pronged CSR strategy in the areas of CO2 emission reduction, waste [...]
By Bhavani Prakash In the realms of industrial design and closed-loop manufacturing systems, the international bestseller, “Cradle to Cradle, Reinventing The Way We Make Things” is a revolutionary and avant-garde work by Michael Braungart and William McDonough. Braungart is the Founder of the Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency (EPEA) in Hamburg, Germany. Meeting Michael Braungart in person, [...]
by Anjali Pathak Prakash Singh Raghuvanshi is a high school dropout and visually impaired farmer from Tadia, a village in Northern India. His sheer determination and enterprise has led him to develop several organic varieties of grains and vegetables, which he distributes relentlessly to thousands of farmers throughout his region. In 2008, he was invited [...]
Anita Sancha is an environmentalist, designer and animator based in the UK, seeking to raise awareness through her intricately conceived animations. Her first ever called “Home-Sweet Home” was submitted to a competition organised by Current TV where she won a lunch with Al Gore. All her videos are available on her website, free to download [...]
“The Tragedy of the Commons” was a term first introduced by Garrett Hardin in Science in 1968. He described how people acting independently and solely out of self interest are likely to overuse a common limited resource, leading to its eventual depletion - even though this is against everyone’s long term interest. The theory helps [...]
Janet Unruh is a person who believes that everything can be recycled 100% – provided we learn how to design things properly and set up the right systems for materials recovery. With her knowledge and experience in manufacturing, having worked for the last decade in the truck manufacturing industry, she has founded “The Institute for [...]
Anshu Gupta is a social innovator par excellence. He has not only identified social problems that are outside the radar screens of most NGOs and Government funding agencies, he has also been able to structure imaginative solutions to pressing social issues by recycling urban waste resources such as clothing and school materials. GOONJ (which means [...]
Poonam Bir Kasturi‘s passion for design and the environment is epitomised in the elegant and practical “Daily Dump” home composting system. It was selected as one of the “Top Nominees” for the INDEX Design Award in 2007, apart from receiving several other awards. Poonam talks about her inspiration behind this great design idea, and why composting is [...]
