Mindful Consumption Conclave curated by EWIT held
on 10 Jul 2019 at Madras Boat Club:
Mindful Consumption of Resources
Today, we are in the era, where our Natural
Resources are fast depleting and the world is grappling with the climate change
and its consequences. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in
2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the
planet, now and into the future.
At its heart are
the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for
action by all countries - developed and developing - in a global partnership. SDG
12 speaks about “Ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns”
WHY, HOW and WHEN
need to be brainstormed, to create an effective and implementable framework
on sustainable consumption, stop waste levels along production and supply
chains and create an environmentally sound management of these
resources.
EWIT brought in experts to
talk on this this most important SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL in par
with the United National SDGs
Mindful Digital
Consumption
In addition, we
also covered mindful digital consumption. The deep penetration of
social digital in our lives, everything under the surveillance of
camera phones and videos, excessive usage of digital resources and creating of
e-waste that would soon become a curse to the world. How can we ensure a balanced Digital
Consumption approach that will protect our generations from an excessive usage
of the digital content?
Our panel spoke on:
1.
Framework on sustainable consumption of natural
resources
2.
Mindful Digital Consumption
Speakers
1. Mr. Arun Krishnamurthy, Founder,
EFI
2. Dr. Vidya Durai, Director, BNY Mellon
3. Mr. Santhosh T, Vels University
4. Mr. Manikandan T, Director for Digital
Apps and Games Services, Amazon
Moderator:
Mr. Vijay Anand, Founder CEO, The Startup Centre
The evening started with Nirmala Gopalakrishnan, President
of EWIT welcoming the Gathering and giving a brief introduction on EWIT and its
vision and work. Treasurer and Program
curator Umasree Raghunath gave a briefing on the need for this Environment
based Conclave on Mindful consumption and introduced the eminent Panel for the
evening.
Moderator
Vijay Anand set the stage with starting the discussion on the Conscious
Consumption Changes needed in environmental framework
Environmental Crusader Arun Krishnamurthy – Founder of EFI explained on the need to
understand the 2 terms - Anthropocene and legion. Which
basically talks about the human impact on nature and the chemical waste
generated
The Anthropocene is a proposed epoch dating from the commencement of
significant human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems, including, but not
limited to, anthropogenic climate change. (Meaning from internet)
Arun emphasised on the need to understand social
research statistics and fact that people are consuming more than what cannot
degrade. Awareness to reduce waste must
begin within the local communities.
Student
Representative Santhosh gave an emotional but factual detail from the
student perspective. How the society is
today behind the star rating process and aggregate the quality of work. He said that smart phones are the most
poisonous toys we are giving our children today. It does not end there. The availability of data and phones for every
child not only results in excessive data consumption but also create e-waste
that this Earth cannot handle. He
expressed deep anguish on the waste of time and lack of human interaction. Every smile, tear and fear are now expressed
only in emojis than in human expressions.
The digitalization despite having visual teaching aids etc is constraining
people from having real time experience.
He revealed the research details that 14 Million
tonnes of e-waste generated in 2018 out of which 50% are personal devices like
phones and computers and only 20% of this is properly recycled. Unfortunately, India is in the 5th
place in e-waster producers in the world.
By 2020, these numbers will be alarmingly increase filling up our land,
space and sea. He explained how the
inactive satellites and expired vehicles are left behind in space with no
technology to get back from space. All
this will have considerable impact in environment. 1.5% only is equipped today to manage e-waste. Which is a very alarming statistic.
Manikandan
T, Director from Amazon who became the key speaker having to answer consumer-based
audience expressive various viewpoints, he managed it extremely well, composed
and keep up to the values of being a responsible consumer and a strong
corporate leader. He suggested 3 Key Ways to address this:
1. Drive awareness on Reducing Waste
2. Moderation of Policies - like electricity bills
based on consumption slabs
He explained how every non-living thing will become living thing with
artificial intelligence playing its role soon.
Everything will become intelligent
3.
Drive
Innovation to simplify Human life and address burning
issues.
Academician
and Director of BNY Mellon Technology, Dr. Vidya Durai emphasised
the need for Corporate being houses that drive responsible businesses. She cited examples of how they adopted 3 villages
after 2015 Floods and reconverted the village which used to be called as Vellam
Konda agaram even today from inundation and making the water bodies manage
excessive water after rains. Creating community
kitchens and water rejuvenation where the corporate worked with SMEs who have
expert knowledge on managing the eco system.
She explained the need for collaboration and
synergy between all entities, NGOs like EFI, Corporates and Government
authorities. She also highlighted how
the 2% CSR funding is making a change in the way the Corporates are responding
towards social responsibility.
Moderator
moved the discussion on the Plastic Ban.
Vidya went on her strong views
on the need for Comprehensive efforts to take this plastic ban to real
effect. Synergy between Government,
NGOs and Corporates along with the citizens being responsible is the key to
success. Even then achieving 100% is a
distant dream. If we don’t ban packaging
of chips like LAYS in plastic covers and our groceries still coming in plastic
packets and milk supplied in plastic covers.
Abundance is a curse than
Scarcity.
Arun explained how this policy on Plastic ban was
designed by experts after months of research and study, and to please everyone
involved and the list of what is included and what is not. and to keep up with
the standards of the Global Political Framework on Environment required. And there is a dire need to stick to the environment
norms too and Government set up to be made in the optimal resource areas. The key is the consumption consumer choices
that are made. Human beings to think
beyond the business and abide by the cultural and value systems that guide our
consumer behaviours.
We need to localize cultural changes - go back to roots of using mango leaves and
banana trees torans instead of balloons and plastic flowers. Use Palm tree products and improve composite
bins in the communities. We are so used
to blaming the system and others instead of making the changes from
ourselves. There is no social divide of
rich/poor, educated/illiterate, male/female, religion, caste, creed, the
responsibility of mindful consumption lies with everyone. WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR DAMAGES HERE and NO
ONE ELSE
Vidya informed on the work done by PIST (Association
of IITian) that work towards responsible environment behaviours. Arun
informed on the Himalayan task of work done by EFI currently where they must
clear 64 water bodies before 10 Oct.
Arun called out for ‘TREAT YOUR BODY and PLANET THE SAME WAY’. He explained the need to have the focus
on 3 Key Areas
· WASTE
· WATER
· WILDLIFE
He said that bodies like EWIT can organizing ‘Bird
Watching’, ‘experimentation with waste’ – like collecting samples of the waste
in the bottle and keeping it in the table near the TVs. He explained how these experiments worked
wonders in schools like APL Global in creating environment awareness. The small things like throwing waste only in
the bins in the schools.
As a final note, Mani explained the need for three
things….
1.
Make Environmentally Friendly consumer behaviour
part of life- Make Habitual Life
2.
Make Punishments stronger to create fear of doing
wrong
3.
Inculcate behavioural changes that need to be
brought in only by creating awareness
Vidya mentioned on the need to classification of
our digital consumption under 5 headings:
Classify on what we do:
1.
Infotoxication
2.
Consumption
3.
Interaction – Limited
4.
Participation Levels
5.
Education
These will result in Actualization of creating
self-esteem, cognizant of where we are, what we are and inculcate values in our
present and future generations
Human behaviour on Planet can be classified into
1:9: 90 as per Arun. Which means
1% thinks on its own
9% process the information available
90% are innocent followers
There is need to create a happy mindsets as happy
minds explores and evolves. This will
help in creating experiences that are excessive or obsessive consumption behaviours.
The final tag line with which this conclave ended
was
Time to SAVE YOURSELF. ……Planet Saves It selves.
The conclave ended with thanking the Panel and Vote
of Thanks by Vice President of EWIT- Bhanurekha Condur. EWIT
members were happy to have curated this event that had a combination of
technology and the need of the hour to have mindfulness in our consumption
behaviours. The main reason why EWIT
took this up is that IT/ITES sector is the largest sector utilizing and
excessive usage of the available resources today and this awareness and
insights was very important.
-
Written by
Umasree Raghunath.
