The ground up

by Apoorva Vardhan, Weiyan Low, Tatiana Fedorova and Alba De Agustin Camacho

Abstract

‘The Ground Up’ podcast sheds light on ground-up initiatives that contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We focus on the SDG 12 which refers to sustainable consumption and production patterns. We highlight contamination issues of the sacred Ganga River of India, and the complications in tackling the issue. We zoom in on an underrepresented aspect of the discussion, focusing cultural and religious practices by the river. We explore the tale of ‘HelpUsGreen’, a grassroots initiative that converts ceremonial waste into new products. It posits itself as a socially innovative solution towards not only environmental problems, but in improving social relations and empowering women. In our interviews with locals, field experts and scholars, we discuss the benefits and limitations of such initiatives, and present into a comparative discussion with top-down initiatives. We conclude that improved cooperation between both are key to developing sustainable solutions.

 

Featuring contributions

Dr.Kelly D.Alley (Professor at Auburn University), Dr.Sya Kedzior (Associate Professor at the Department of Geograhy and Environmental Planning, Towson university), Lalith Aditya (Mentor at local NGO ‘Reap Benefit ‘), Prateechi Chaturvedi (Resident in the Ganga ), name unknown (Resident in the Ganga )

References and further reading

https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-consumption-production/ 

Restoring Sanctity for 1.25 Billion People, Karan Rastogi, TEDxLBSIM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8qA2mMVvWg