The Green School is a new and emerging concept in today’s context speaking of environment protection right from the schools. As schools are the basic component of education building, school-going children should be the absolute target group for bringing out the change.
Children are more susceptible to growing environmental degradation. As the future lies within the children, we must encourage and make our children more responsible towards the environment. This concept of Green Schools is one of the major aspects of bringing children closer to nature. A Green School can aptly be defined as one who uses its resources judiciously by having a resource-efficient building, using less water and following the three R’s concept.
Top Best Green Schools of India
In India, the concept of identifying the Green Schools and their recognition is done by Green School Programme, an initiative by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) is a public interest research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi. It basically works on researches related to development that is sustainable and equitable. The Green School programme is an environmental education programme directed to subtly sensitizing students to the environment through hands-on and thought-provoking activities. It is also an environment management system that audits, through students, the consumption of natural resources within school campuses and helps schools become good environmental managers by deploying pragmatic solutions to reduce the wastage of precious resources. Every Year, the GSP calls for suitable entries from various schools across India to register themselves for recognition of the school under various categories. These categories are:
- Changemaker- Yellow to Green
- Changemaker- Orange to Green
- Changemaker Primary School- Orange to Green
- Changemaker Orange to Yellow
- Best New Entrant Green
- Green in a row
- Air
- Energy
- Food
- Land
- Waste
- State with Highest Registrations and report submissions
- District with Highest registrations and report submissions
The ratings provided to the schools remain valid for three years from the date of recognition of the award.
The registered schools are then audited on the following criteria:
- How the school manages its transport policies for mitigating its effect on surrounding air quality.
- How the schools manage the sources of energy, the consumption of energy; and explores ways in which this resource can be saved, to minimise pollution and costs.
- The ability of the school to coordinate, implement and monitor its canteen to provide good-quality and nutritious food.
- The ability of the school to focuses on the land-use of schools to map green areas, to identify biodiversity; and to grasp the enormous ecological and economic value of this resource.
- How effectively the school has managed to find out ways of water conservation and the importance of sanitation facilities.
- Steps were taken by schools ineffective waste management and waste segregation facilities.
The list of Best Green Schools of India awarded during the year 2019-2020 are as:
| S. No | Awards | Winners |
| 1 | CHANGEMAKER ‘Yellow to Green’ | Montfort Valley Sr. Sec. School, Murickumthotty, Idukki, Kerala |
| 2 | CHANGEMAKER ‘Orange to Green’ | Govt. Sr. Sec. School Chail |
| 3 | CHANGEMAKER Primary School ‘Orange to Green’ | Satya Bharti School, Bari Khas |
| 4 | CHANGEMAKER ‘Orange to Yellow’ | Shivalik Valley School |
| 5 | Best New Entrant Green | Adhyapana School, Madurai, Tamil Nadu |
| 6 | Best New Entrant Green | Govt. Sr. Sec. School Kujji, Himachal Pradesh |
| 7 | Green in a Row | Bal Bharati Public School, IMT Manesar, Haryana |
| 8 | Green in a Row | Bal Bharati Public School Noida, Uttar Pradesh |
| 9 | Green in a Row | East Point School, New Delhi |
| 10 | Green in a Row | Gyanodaya Vidya Mandir, Damoh, Madhya Pradesh |
| 11 | Green in a Row | Motilal Nehru School Of Sports, Rai, Sonipat, Haryana |
| 12 | Green in a Row | Mount Litera Zee School Jamshedpur, Jharkhand |
| 13 | Green in a Row | Salwan Public School, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh |
| 14 | Green in a Row | St. George’s School, New Delhi |
| 15 | Green in a Row | St. Edmund’s School, Jaipur, Rajasthan |
| 16 | Green in a Row | The Pinnacle School, New Delhi |
| 17 | AIR | ZPHS, Gopalakrishna Puram, Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh |
| 18 | ENERGY | Kendriya Vidyalaya Fatehgarh Sahib (R.U.), Punjab |
| 19 | FOOD | Sachdeva Global School, New Delhi |
| 20 | LAND | GHS Dugha, Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh |
| 21 | WASTE | Kendriya Vidyalaya, Baikunthpur, Chhattisgarh |
| 22 | State with the Highest Registrations and Report Submissions | Andhra Pradesh |
| 23 | District with the Highest Registrations and Report Submissions | Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh |
Source: http://www.greenschoolsprogramme.org/
She is a Conservation Biologist deeply concerned with the protection and sustainability of natural resources and wildlife. She is particularly interested in studying and addressing the loss of Biodiversity and educating the people about the same. She has a Master’s degree in Zoology with Post Graduate Diploma in Environment and Sustainable Development and another in Sustainability Sciences.