The Green Institute

Green Institute is a centre for sustainable development. Green Institute is a member of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), a global initiative for the United Nations, operating since 2012 under the auspices of the UN Secretary-General. Green Institute is formed with the involvement of national and international experts, distinguished academics, experienced practitioners & developmental professionals to contribute for planning, designing and building sustainable, green  & smart cities and communities in Nepal. Green Institute is an independent, nonpartisan institution whose mission is to promote sustainable development in Nepal and help solve social, economic and environmental challenges.

Green Institute is a center for education, knowledge development, capacity development, idea generation & implementation. Green institute is an independent think tank and ensures impartial policy recommendations for sustainable development. Green Institute gets engaged on policy discourse and analysis, policy consulting, advisory services, and rigorous research on issues related to sustainable development. Green Institute engages in finding out scientific and practical solutions to developmental problems and in responding effectively today’s developmental challenges. Green Institute tries to form and stimulate public opinion through open public debate/discourse and widely spread knowledge and information.

Green Institute tries to bring together developmental workers, activists, experts, scholars, practitioners, public officials, policy makers, media people and people and provide a common forum for multidisciplinary perspectives on public policy concerning sustainable development. Green Institute is intended as an open platform for critical exchange between researchers, professionals, and decision-makers and to build consensus between various stakeholders working for sustainable development. Green Institute aims to be one of the leading think tanks of Nepal on sustainable development.

For national and International students/scholars, academicians and researchers, Green Institute is a major center of practical study and research in Nepal about natural resources, natural disasters, biodiversity, environmental, social, cultural, economic and sustainable developmental issues of Nepal.

Green Institute envisions Nepal in which cities and communities become more prosperous, healthier, inclusive, safe, resilient, smart, green and sustainable. Green Institute remains committed and dedicated towards shaping better and safer cities and communities through partnership based approach and action.

Green Institute will attempt to be developed as the leading center in Nepal supporting sustainable city and community development and the planning and building of better cities and communities. In this context, Green Institute will work with governmental, non-governmental, private, academic, national and international institutions to make Nepalese cities and communities a better and safer place to live. The Green Institute has been launched and facilitated by one of the leading non-governmental, social and environmental organizations of Nepal- Team for Nature & Wildlife (TNW).

Vision:

Sustainable, green, resilient & smart cities and communities in Nepal

Mission:

To promote, assist and strengthen governmental and non-governmental stakeholders for planning, designing & building sustainable, green, resilient & smart cities and communities in Nepal.

The Founder:

Mr. BK is an environmental activist and developmental scholar, planner & practitioner. He has more than 15 years of practical experience in rural and urban development and organizational leadership, management and administration.

He has long-term experience with UN-Habitat youth programs and has participated at UN-Habitat’s several international events since 2010.He is actively involved in global dialogues on issues related to youth, employment, environment, land, agriculture, food security/hunger and sustainable development.

During the participation at UN-Habitat’s international events, he got an opportunity to consult with several world-class urban developmental practitioners, professionals and scholars on urban developmental issues. He also held interaction with more than one hundred urban development experts, scholars and urban-based civil society leaders around the world, leading to ground-breaking recommendations for better urban communities. Face-to-face interaction and inputs strengthened his knowledge on urban issues and encouraged him to found the Green Institute, to further the development of better cities and communities in Nepal. Through this institution, he aims to promote and strengthen governmental and community initiatives for developing a green, smart and sustainable city and community in Nepal. He wants to work for sustainable development of cities and rural communities in Nepal.

He has worked as a consultant for several national and international projects. His social initiatives and achievements have been highly recognized and promoted at international level. In December 2017, he has been selected by the UN-SDSN for UN-SDSN member Showcase on SDSN Mobilize, an initiative of featuring extraordinary person within the UN-SDSN. He is a Founding campaigner and taking a lead of “Hi-Quality Cities”. He has developed his own city developmental model with a long-term vision of “High-Quality Cities.”

Main Working Areas

Smart City Development:

The Green Institute attempts to work as a partner institution for key stakeholders (governmental, non-governmental agencies, communities or community based organizations) to plan, design and develop smart cities and communities in Nepal. The Green Institute offers high-grade advisory or consulting services to key stakeholders (governmental, non-governmental agencies, communities or community based organizations) for planning, designing and building sustainable, green & smart cities and communities. Through world-class experts, engineers, architects, urban planners, urban economists and professionals associated with the Green Institute, it works on scientific urban design, planning and development.

Smart city scholars and experts associated with the Green Institute are involved in smart city developmental initiatives of Nepal Government.

Urban planning, design & development:

Green Institute has developed a team of (and maintained a roster of) world-class highly qualified international and national experts from diverse backgrounds including architecture, planning, design, business development, economics, environment, health, agriculture, engineering, geospatial analytics, ICT, model making/visualizations, graphic design and project management. This diversity of highly creative young urban planners/designers, scholars, experts and professionals helps the Green Institute for effective planning and design of the cities.

Through better planning, Green Institute attempts to promote city’s sustained economic growth & development, urban resilience, environmental sustainability and enhance quality of life of all and create positive social, environmental and economic effects.

Green City Development:

The Green Institute attempts to encourage, advice, technically assist and work together with municipalities or cities in Nepal to make green cities and communities. In this context, the Green Institute will utilize knowledge, skills, ideas, expertise and experiences of its core team members and advisers in green city/municipality development.

Green Institute attempts to:

• Mainstream environmental concerns into urban planning, design and development
• Support the municipality to develop master plan, action plan, guidelines, roadmap for green cities
• Find out environmental sensitive areas in municipality, and find measures to protect environment and mitigate natural disasters,
• Support the municipality to develop better and more resilient plans and strategies that address climate change related risks.
• Explore city resilience mechanisms, adaptation and mitigation capacities and the possibilities of the city to deal with climate change risks through adequate plans.
• Advise and work with municipality for necessary environmental protection, conservation and improvement interventions

Advise and work with municipality for Strategic Environment Assessment (SEE), IEE and EIA

Advise and work with municipality to make an analysis of environmental condition in the area

Assist municipality to set goals and objectives for environmental sectors, provides critical measures to improve natural and man-made environment of the area.

Assist municipality to make an assessment of urban environmental concerns as these are growing to critical level due to air, land, noise, visual pollution, high fossil fuel consumption, land use incompatibility, public space encroachment, growth of squatter settlements, disregard for cultural heritage/ aesthetic of indigenous architecture and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).

Advise and work together with municipalities to make a green city

Facilitate the municipality to link with national and international stakeholders working on green cities

Sustainable City Development:

The Green Institute attempts to develop sustainable cities and communities by assisting the government and communities in achieving the targets set by United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) no : 11. With the contribution of the experts and consultants associated with the Green Institute and its partner institutions, it will attempt to assist the key urban developmental stakeholders to develop an action plan, apply a scientific, systematic, strategic planning approach for designing and implementation of smart, green and sustainable city developmental initiatives.

Resilient cities

Nepal is highly vulnerable to natural disasters including earthquake. Despite its low contribution on GHGs emissions, the country is witnessing adverse impacts of climate change, which has amplified climate disasters. In this context, we provide technical advisory services, expertise and assistance to cities become more resilient to the environmental, physical, social, and economic challenges and enable cities to absorb recover and prepare for future shocks. We help to enable cities avoid and adapt to climate-related disasters, manage disaster risk and the impacts of climate change.

For strengthening urban resilience, we make a Rapid City diagnosis and research to better understand cities’ present status on urban resiliency. We assess city’s strengths, vulnerabilities, and exposure to different natural disasters and manmade threats in order to build their resilience. Then, we help cities improve their understanding of risk and the performance of urban systems and to identify priority actions that will enhance city’s resilience. We devise plan, policies, approaches and strategies to reduce exposure and vulnerability to shocks and increase cities’ adaptive capacity. In coordination with city governments, we also organize events like knowledge/skill development workshop for enhancing knowledge and skills and sharing best practice in improving urban resilience.

LAND USE PLANNING

Green Institute provides consulting services to rural municipalities and municipalities to prepare an integrated spatial land use plan.

The objectives of the project are:

• Conduct an open discussion with the municipality and relevant stakeholders about the need of land use planning and its importance in sustainable development;
• Development of a concept for undertaking integrated spatial land use planning for sustainable development in the municipality.
• Prepare the land use plan for the municipalities

Project management.

The Green Institute consists of a team of highly experienced and skilled professionals on social, economical, environmental project design, planning, development, management and implementation. Green Institute, with the involvement of its experts and in coordination with its national and international partners offers consulting services in the development of strategic plan, action plan, operational plan, Master plan of any sustainable developmental projects and organizations. Green Institute also offers project management services to governmental, non-governmental organizations and other stakeholders. The Green Institute supports the stakeholders to deliver the projects that meet cost, schedule and targets. The Green Institute works to create right strategies, manage and mitigate risk, and assure the outcomes to meet project objectives.

Green institute has been offering services to governmental, non governmental and private organizations in project management (planning, design, contract procurement and administration, cost management, risk management, value management, construction, monitoring, commissioning, operation and maintenance).

Monitoring and evaluation

The Green Institute works for monitoring and evaluation of projects. Green Institute will adopt spot based monitoring system using agreed indicators to assess outcomes, outputs, results and impacts of project.

Green Institute works on short-term, mid-term or end-term reviews, performance assessment or impact assessments and evaluations covering all aspects of developmental projects like social, economic, cultural, political, technical, environmental and sustainability aspects.

Green Institute will engage on discourse, dialogue, debate and analysis on issues related to sustainable development. Green Institute engages in finding out scientific and practical solutions to developmental problems and in responding effectively today’s developmental challenges.

Green Institute will try to form and stimulate public opinion through public debate/discourse and widely spread knowledge and information. Green Institute is intended as an open platform for critical exchange between researchers, professionals, decision-makers and people and to build consensus between various stakeholders working for sustainable development.

Policy Discourse

Green Institute conducts Policy Dialogues, policy workshops and interaction with policy makers, people, professionals and experts. Policy Dialogue is run as open space platforms for exchange of ideas and inputs on public policies. Green Institute facilitates policy dialogue events with multiple stakeholders at different levels and locations.

Organic Cities Initiative

(Promoting the development of Organic Cities & communities)

Nepal is rich in natural resources with climate diversity. More than 67 % people are involved in agriculture for sustaining life and livelihood. Most of the people adopt traditional agriculture system. Excessive and haphazard use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has made adverse impacts on environment and human health.

At least 83% of farmers in Nepal are using pesticides, often excessively. Hundreds of farmers use pesticides everyday in Nepal without Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) or any background safety knowledge. The farmers using pesticides are found to have suffered from side effects such as headaches, respiratory problems and memory loss – symptoms which can be traced directly back to pesticide poisoning. Pesticides have been linked to carcinogenic, mutagenic and tetragenic properties, and, according to the WHO, 20,000 commercial farmers die from pesticide exposure and poisoning annually.

Organic agriculture systems promote environmentally, socially and economically sound production of crops with respect to the natural capacity of plants and local conditions. It aims to optimize quality production. Taking into account of excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and its adverse impacts on environment and human health, mission organic initiative has been launched. The main objective of the initiative is to inspire and work together with emerging cities and communities for developing organic cities/communities.

Organic city (Chapakot municipality)

Chapakot municipality, Syangja district is one of the greenest cities in Nepal, endowed with fascinating natural beauty and biodiversity, dense forest, river and streams, geography, cultural diversity and adequate, appropriate and highly fertile land.

pic2With an objective to preserve environment and improve socio-economic situation of people, Chapakot Municipality has decided to become Nepal’s first organic city in 10 years. In response to the advice, request and proposal of Mr. BK Shrestha, on 23rd April, Chapakot municipality of Syangja district officially decided and declared to develop it as an organic city and all the villages into organic villages in 10 years. Mr. BK had spoken about organic city development to generate awareness, educate, inspire and convince the 52 city council members.

The Municipality has made an action plan with several strategies to achieve this goal. The Municipality has set up community-based agriculture schools in different communities of the municipality in the name of “Prangarik Pathshala”, to educate, provide training and extension services to the farmers about organic farming.

Green Institute’s role:

Green Institute is one of the major implementing partners of “Organic Cities” Initiative. GI will technically assist the cities and communities to plan and design organic cities/communities in Nepal.

Read more about the Green Institute here