IIT Madras launches School of Sustainability; aims to teach new, interdisciplinary courses

NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology Madras has launched a School of Sustainability today, October 7. The School of Sustainability will teach new, interdisciplinary courses on sustainability, synergy research to tackle challenges and provide a platform to showcase technologies that can help drive both practice and policy.

The school will bring together faculty members from across departments and research centres of the Institute.

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Chief Guest Shri Jayant Sinha, Member of Parliament, and Chairperson, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, said, “Today, the world is on fire...If you have seen the research, we have had the warmest September on record and its warmer not just by 0.5 degree centigrade but much much warmer than people had anticipated. We are in 2023 experiencing the warmest year that humanity has ever experienced. We have seen that in the extreme weather events accross the world this year, from the fires in Canada to the flash floods in Sikkim...We do not know what once in a 100 years is going to bring”.

Sinha referred to this as a crucial initiative. The School intends to offer a variety of sustainability-related capacity building programmes to working professionals, both online and in-person, in addition to a minor course in sustainability and an interdisciplinary Master's programme in the topic. The School will prioritise basic scientific research, technological development and transfer, real-world project implementation, and policy advising activities in addition to teaching.

Speaking on the occasion, Kala Vairavamoorthy, Executive Director, International Water Association, said, “In the water sector, we are seeing this major transition taking place. We are moving much more to a low-carbon way of doing business. Water was very carbon intensive, historically. But with huge investments taking place, particularly in the Global South, we are seeing this opportunity to re-build and re-imagine our water infrastructure in a much more low-carbon way. We are also seeing this transition to a circular economy, which is a big thing in the water sector.”

The highlights of the school's teaching and research initiatives

Teaching- Aside from the minor course in sustainability that IIT-Madras will provide to all students in 2024, the school intends to introduce an Integrated Dual Degree Programme (IDDD) on Sustainability within the following three to five years. The minor will still be available to all students at IIT Madras, however this will be a full-fledged Master's degree with a thesis project, unlike the minor. Additionally, this plan will introduce a number of multidisciplinary courses.

Research– The School has identified four key areas of research and development, namely Decarbonization, Human Settlements, Modelling and Scenario Development, and Behavioural and Industrial Change.

In each of these four areas, the School will undertake basic scientific research, translational and product development, pilot implementations and policy advisory. As an example, a policy roundtable on Climate Finance was recently conducted in partnership with the Ministry of Finance, Government of India and served as an important input to the G20 deliberations on this issue.

In the long term, the School of Sustainability will support the nation, industry, and global citizens well-rounded professionals who will lead the world in building resilient and sustainable infrastructure for industries and communities.

The school will act as a platform to catalyze the change to a low-carbon world by supporting the translation of research and knowledge to products and services.

The School was inaugurated in the presence Jayant Sinha, Member of Parliament and Chairperson, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, Kala Vairavamoorthy, Executive Director, International Water Association, V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, Ashwin Mahalingam, Head, School of Sustainability, IIT Madras, and Prof Rajnish Kumar, Associate Head of the school besides faculty, staff and students.

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