“We all are unaware how unsustainable practices we follow in our day to day lives, even after burning woods ruthlessly, cave man was causing less harm to the environment as compared to what we are doing today.”
In a 60 min interactive session organized by Earth.org, on June 5, 2021 under the leadership of
Mr. Vivek Atray (ex IAS officer, Motivational Speaker),
Mr. Sameer Guglani (Founder Morpheus Ventures) and
Mr. Kunal Nandwani (CEO uTrade Solutions)
as key speakers who very thoughtfully virtually addressed an audience of 100+ people.
Sustainability is relatively a new idea and clearly the least spoken topic. Many of us still don’t understand what sustainability is? For the common man segregating biodegradable and nonbiodegradable waste in plastic bags is the only step towards sustainability.
Audience was amazed to hear Mr. Sameer Guglani, who explained how even using a smartphone or accessing the internet creates a considerable carbon footprint, together which creates havoc for the planet.
“Sustainability is not just environmentalism. The movement as a whole has roots in social justice, conservationism, internationalism and capitalism”, quoted Mr. Kunal Nandwani.
Sustainability is all about meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, and the biggest missing link to attain sustainability is population control!
Hardly any country is talking about it, including densely populated countries like India and China. Surprisingly both countries had population control initiatives and laws in the past, but the increasing desire to grow endlessly has put sustainability on hold . Clearly we all are adding burden to our small blue planet, not only affecting the human species but also the other species with whom we share the planet.
“The only person helping the planet right now is someone living in the forest, maintaining his own ecosystem,” mentioned Mr. Vivek Atray.
We are creating a warmer planet by air conditioning our houses and offices.
People are choosing to make indoors killing chilled, irrespective of its impact on the environment. Few countries like China and France, have taken initiatives to lower the greenhouse gases released by CFC and HCFC refrigerants and are highly appreciated.
Very interestingly Mr. Sameer Guglani introduced the audience to the aspect of spirituality and evolution to sustainability, the urge to have power over others has been a reason for unsustainability and has hindered the natural rate of human evolution.
Religion and teachings of great philosophers can help us overcome sustainably. We need to look more inside and evolve humanity to make this society a better place to live.
Mr. Kunal Nandwani, very thoughtfully mentioned the importance of morals in the upbringing of the upcoming generation. Our education is limited to learning grammar, maths and science. Clearly, the education system has not improved, especially in countries like India. In few countries like Singapore and Japan, the first 4-7 years of schooling is only instilling the basics of humanities and moral values, which might be the reason why most educated people there go for government jobs, to serve the country and their countrymen.
“We force kids to learn what to think, instead of making them learn how to think, proper moral education can help us solve many sustainable problems”, quoted Mr. Kunal Nandwani.
“Covid has been a very testing time for the entire world. Our healthcare and education system has shown up,” stated Mr. Vivek Atray. Education system has shown up because the most educated and advanced countries were unable to follow the basic norms to prevent the spread of the virus. Healthcare, which has been the most under budgeted of all times, was exhausted with the load of patients and insufficient supplies.
“What’s the point of having all this development if the population will get whipped out because of the virus attacks”, the question Mr. Vivek Atray was mind-boggling. He emphasized on the fact that sustainability of human kind also means the immunity of human beings. Staying healthy physically and mentally should be the priority of every individual.
Covid outbreak has made people rethink what’s going wrong in the system and how to resolve it. We need to stop recklessly using nature and prove that in order to be safe, the entire world needs to be healthy, everyone needs to be vaccinated. Even countries like the US are making its people get vaccinated.
“Covid has forced us to rethink the entire world as a whole community”, quoted Mr. Vivek Atray.
We need good leadership to focus more on equality, proper distribution of wealth and facilities. We have to be very sensible towards the extinction of animals and birds as well.
“Covid is a way by which nature is making us aware to grow at a global level and bring more humanity initiatives, i.e., to think about others as well”, quoted Mr. Sameer Guglani.
In the race to reach prosperity governments and industrialists have recklessly exploited the environment. And the sad part is that developed countries like the US and China who deteriorate the environment the most are not even bothered to address it. Even the great leaders of the great nations are not addressing these problems. Somehow the high priority agendas are not taken seriously.
Ignorance and lack of awareness are the key reasons behind these malpractices. Global and local influencers need to talk more about this.
“Such thought provoking idea sharing sessions should be conducted regularly and a report of it should be shared with authorities for effective measures,” stated Mr. Vivek Atray.
“Entrepreneurs are the masters of the society”, quoted Mr. Sameer Gulani.
He also mentioned a startup who are creating biodegradable diapers. Undoubtedly, it will take time for them to flourish, but they inspire a whole community to work towards sustainability.
The panelist agreed and emphasized that Entrepreneurs and Startups are the ones who lead the planet with ideas, they are the people who sell the things that you and I use. Hence, they have to shoulder the responsibility of bringing sustainable solutions to the market.
The panelist have high hopes from Entrepreneurs in bringing change to the society as unlike NGO’s, (who do excellent work) they don’t have to depend on external fundings and are much more scalable
Mr. Kunal Nandwani specially mentioned about Arvind Eye Care, who are working towards bringing eye surgery costs a lot lower by opting for sustainable options, i.e improvising the processes, reducing lens costs etc. Arvind Eye Care is an example which proves that you can still make money without overcharging and can bring eye care affordable to millions of people.
The panelist emphasized on the fact that we need to create leaders for all sectors by education to bring sustainability on grounds.
Mr. Kunal Nandwani concluded the meet by making an eye-opener statement, “We are the first generation to witness the outcomes of our unsustainable actions and probably the last one to do something about it and there is no superhero who will come and save the planet. It’s only me and you who can bring the change”
There is an urgent need to bring solutions towards education, sustainability and equality, addressing the left out sustainable topics.
The audience was touched deeply and highly influenced. Few attendees even requested for the recording so that they can share with their peers and create awareness. You can find the entire event at our youtube channel:
This thought provoking event idea was covered by Outlook Money as well, https://www.outlookindia.com/outlookmoney/investment/green-is-the-colour-of-investment-for-future-7567
“Imagination leads to thoughts, thoughts lead to ideas and if ideas are great, someone can execute and scale it”. These few words of Mr. Kunal Nandwani covers the whole concept of Earth.org.
It is a crowdsourcing platform started in the year 2018, addressing all the sustainable issues at a larger level. Earthr.org can be defined as Quora or Wikepedia meets kickstarter, where different communities come together to discuss sustainable problems and solutions and entrepreneurs help them to scale it. Earthr.org is trying to solve sustainability challenges by encouraging entrepreneurs to work on such problems in a scalable new way.
