Integrating Environmental Sustainability Concerns in Agricultural Higher Education, Research and Innovations

National Agricultural Higher Education Project (NAHEP) is implemented by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Government of India and World Bank to strengthen the national agricultural higher education system in India with an overall objective of providing more relevant and high-quality education to agricultural university students. Environment safeguard measures are one of the inbuilt components under the project and are categorized as ‘Category B’ as per the environmental safeguard policy of the World Bank. Thus, the interventions proposed under the project offer scope for enhancing the positive impacts on the environment through integrating pro-environmental measures. Based on the project proposal, the participating agricultural universities (AUs) prepared ‘Environmental sustainability plans’ comprising legal compliances and mitigation measures, green initiatives, and education and awareness programmes. The present article studied the impact of green initiatives undertaken by the universities under the categories of energy conservation, water conservation, waste management and enhancing greenery. Data on these activities were collected from project-awarded AUs that introduced environmental pro initiatives. These green initiatives were measured in terms of the reduction of CO₂ emissions (tonnes) annually and presented in the form of the carbon footprint of the university campus.