New fellows partnership to train an army of climate warriors

AshokaX, a lifelong learning initiative from Ashoka University, recently partnered with the global Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to lead the Climate Corps Fellowship in India. The fellowship aims to nurture an army of climate warriors and leverage catalytic action towards tackling climate issues.

“We want to build a workforce that is trained and finds opportunities to act on climate action. It is a win-win for both the workforce and businesses,” Paridhi Mishra, AshokaX deputy director and programme head – climate corps – told University World News.

“Many governments and businesses are chalking out climate action plans. But human resource that understands the technicalities is scarce.”



The partnership with AshokaX will scale and amplify the impact of the fellowship, which is in its fifth year in India. Ashoka University, with its rich history of creating and running the coveted Young India Fellowship and its sharp focus on integrating sustainability, was a natural choice for EDF.

“Over the next two years we want to train 100 fellows across India. In the next five years we will probably evolve to focus on executive education to boost the capacity of companies and other organisations in advancing their climate goals, by identifying and training the next generation of sustainability leaders,” added Mishra.

This is an excellent example of education for sustainable development (ESD). Training graduates in sustainability encourages them to promote a learning culture in their current and future positions in the public, private or civil society sectors.

‘My consciousness of sustainability came alive’

Anjan Das, assistant manager at EY (Ernst & Young) in India, was part of the first cohort of Climate Corp Fellows in 2021.

Das was pursuing an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Lucknow at that time. He interned with Nestle India for practical exposure of sustainability for three months as part of his fellowship. He worked on a project to reduce emissions in cash crops, got exposure to farms, and understood the supply chain methods, bottlenecks and designed suggestions.

“My consciousness of sustainability came alive. It was not just a concept anymore. Everything we do has a sustainability angle and we always make choices. That came through the fellowship. How and what can be done as an individual and on an everyday basis was reinforced,” he told University World News.

“My food habits have modified. My commuting options are conscious. At EY I am involved in different types of sustainability projects for renewable energy companies including developing ESG [environmental, social and governance] strategy and reporting frameworks,” Das said.

ESD and the learning organisation concept

The concept of a learning organisation is part of Ashoka University’s strategic thinking. Considering the relevance of ESD, Ashoka has evolved gradually to include environmental management, public participation, community development and social responsibility in university teaching, research and other activities.

The university has a multi-disciplinary approach to creating programmes and solving problems for social impact. The Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability (3CS) is Ashoka’s most interdisciplinary centre, with the involvement of about 10 departments and 30 faculty across them.

Through its LiveGreen initiative, Ashoka connects students directly to questions around sustainability in campus life, and builds a mindset around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and emerging opportunities in green employment and entrepreneurship.

“All students do a foundation course in the environmental sciences, where part of the course focuses on questions of biodiversity and sustainability, as well as of climate change. 3CS funds a number of internships that allow students hands-on experience in questions of climate change and sustainability,” said Professor Gautam Menon, dean of research and professor of physics and biology.

3CS also has a flagship Healing Earth Conference every year, in which separate themes in climate change and sustainability are explored, for example climate change economics or climate change and disease.

“These expose the larger Ashoka community to questions around sustainable practices,” Menon told University World News, talking about the capacity-building opportunities available to faculty and students to build understanding of and exposure to sustainability themes.

Integrating ESD is a ‘long process’

Integrating ESD into the university curriculum and establishing a learning organisation “is a long, hard process”, said Dr Leena James, professor of management and head of the SDG Cell at Christ University in Bangalore.

At Christ University, every year each department picks any three SDGs they want to focus on, along with SDG 17 on partnerships (common across all). Academics and students identify and work on projects that affect the community and beneficiaries positively.

The SDG Cell has worked hard to raise awareness among all stakeholders – students, faculty, staff and community – around the concepts, significance and need for ESD. A dedicated team conducts workshops through the year. Each of the 59 departments has an SDG coordinator and students register as SDG advocates.

“We map SDGs to the curriculum in a structured manner. For example, when we teach management of business sustainability we are looking to integrate aspects of planet, profit and people and how businesses respond to sustainability challenges,” James told University World News.

They have separate workshops for building the capacity of faculty in curating and developing courses around sustainability and integrating ESD in the curriculum.

“We are creating a matrix to understand what change is happening through a structured questionnaire that is sent to students, faculty and staff. We want to understand the learning outcome for each activity and get feedback on what can be improved and iterate accordingly.”

Holistic approach to ESD

Higher education institutions have also taken a holistic approach to ESD, focusing on enabling socially conscious and ethically aware citizens. Jaipuria Institute of Management, Jaipur, has a happiness programme that is spearheaded by its director, Dr Prabhat Pankaj.

The business school is a signatory to the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), the largest organised relationship between the United Nations and business schools. It also leads the PRME India chapter.

The school has chosen to focus on SDGs 1, 3, 4 and 12. The faculty maps all activities and projects undertaken under their Practice, Advocacy and Research Framework.

The happiness lab combines the principles of Ayurveda – an Indian system of traditional medicine – and positive psychology. A three-credit course on the science of well-being and happiness is offered to students and focuses on good living, health, and spiritual and mental well-being.

“The course outcomes are directly linked to sustainable living. Beyond adopting a healthy lifestyle, students are trained to develop resilience, compassion and empathy. They understand the value of relationships and collaboration, which is key to understanding the challenges of climate and planet we face today,” Pankaj told University World News.

The course has become so popular that it is now offered to corporates, faculty and students from other institutions. The aim is to support young graduates and professionals alike to develop a long-term vision and purpose that integrates their responsibility towards achieving sustainability into their personal and professional lives.

Three levels of ESD

ESD can largely be bucketed under three levels – personal, professional and societal – said Supriya Panchangam, creator of Future Founders Co, an India-based social enterprise that helps bring global sustainability education programmes to youth in India.

Several programmes focus on how students and youth can build sustainable habits and make a difference at an individual level and on what applies to their context.

The second level is community. Many universities have some community programmes, planting trees, adopting villages or looking at sustainability within their own campus – reusing water, solar energy and so on.

The last pillar is sustainable development in innovation, research and entrepreneurship. This can include the carbon credits market place, renewable and clean energy projects, electric vehicle mobility etc that contribute to eco-system work. Here, universities will have their own incubators, attract investors and do prototyping.

“At the national level, the government support has enabled an increase in innovation, with a sharp entrepreneurship focus. Engagement in terms of problem discovery, hackathons and competitions encouraging students to generate sustainable business ideas has increased,” Panchangam told University World News.

ESD and lifelong learning

The focus on SDGs and this decade of action (2020 to 2030) has permeated through to higher education institutions through lobbying and government push. Many institutions are integrating sustainability, some more than others.

More importantly, many have adopted lifelong learning as an approach to ESD, which gives learners of all ages the knowledge, skills, values and agency to address interconnected global challenges including climate change, loss of biodiversity, unsustainable use of resources, and inequality.

By looking at holistic programmes and bringing different stakeholders – students, staff, faculty and professionals – to work together, these institutions have empowered learners to make informed decisions and take individual and collective action to change society and care for the planet.