Why the World Needs Sustainable Tourism: Spotlight on Kerala’s Responsible Tourism Initiative

On October 20, 2017, Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan launched the Responsible Tourism initiative, a statewide program aimed at “making better places for people to visit and better places for people to live in” (Naguran, 2017). The Responsible Tourism initiative operates within the “triple bottom line” model often utilized by companies pursuing sustainability. The triple bottom line refers to responsibility and conservation in the economic, social, and environmental spheres. The project has existed on

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Circular Economy

As the threat of climate change becomes more imminent- with recent scientific studies declaring the year 2040 as an ultimatum for preventative action to be taken- we must look to alternative models for sustainable lives. One such model is a circular economy. In contrast to the traditional “linear economy”- in which raw materials are used for production of goods, generating waste with leftover materials- the circular economy redefines economic growth. With societal and environmental benefits

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The Need for Sustainable Energy

As climate change is starting to become an even greater issue on the national and global stage, many leaders and policymakers have been pushing toward adopting more sustainable energy practices. In particular, India’s solar capacity addition for 2019 is said to set a record. This addition is supposed to add an estimated 16 gigawatts of clean energy, and this is driven chiefly by large-scale solar projects. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, set forth a target

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One Month In – Experiences on the Field

As I round out my first month here in India, I am starting to reflect on everything that I have and have not been able to accomplish so far. More than anything, I am eager to see the fruits of my labor in the work I am doing with Profugo, from engineering projects to English and more. One thing that has been strikingly clear from these few short weeks is that absolutely nothing ever goes

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Some Experiences of a Field Fellow

Visiting a Post-Landslide Community As some of you may know, between August 16 and August 30,   Kerala was hit with the worst flood the area has seen in over a hundred years. What is very unfortunate about the whole thing is that some of it was not preventable and some of it was. See, 5 meters of rain fell in just about 10 days here in Wayanad where I am. That’s over 16 feet of

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