Now, toolkit for environment-friendly universities

Katowice : A smart campus cloud network -- a set of guidelines for starting climate action -- was launched at the ongoing UN climate action summit in this Polish city to make the university campuses green, an official associated with the project said on Sunday.

The Climate Neutral University Campus was launched along with a toolkit and water guidelines at the 24th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, known as COP24, TERRE Policy Centre for the smart campuses Chairman Rajendra Shende told IANS.

The kit and the guidelines that are meant to initiate the actions on the campus are part of the tool-box for similar actions for clean energy, waste management, sustainable transport and afforestation.

The results of the activities in the campus would be shared through cloud network with other universities in the network and linked to UN's Sustainable Development Goals, he added.

India-based TERRE Policy Centre is a non-profit, non-partisan and independent organisation dedicated to sustainable solutions to developmental imperatives.

"The smart campus cloud network is a bespoke approach to empower and support students and faculty to begin action on climate change urgently," UN Global Compact's former senior advisor Frederick Dubee said.

Speaking at the launch function, Dubee said the smart campus cloud network, supported by the Unesco, leverages an asset to address the climate emergency.

Cornell University-US student Zeyu Hu presented his university's sustainability achievements.

By sharing the successes and challenges through the cloud network, the campuses would generate positive competition.

"Campuses are the right places to trigger the emergency actions laid out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report of 1.5 degrees Celsius," Shende told IANS.

"Campuses would not only make youth Sustainable Development Goals ready but would also make them climate-resilient," he added.