Our Mission

To engage each resident to be the change for a clean, green, safe city – and a greener planet.

OUR CORE FOCUS AREAS

There is just so much to be done for a clean, green, safe city – and we have chosen a few key focus areas to work on, given our limited resources. We believe they will give us cleaner air, land and water, more beautiful spaces and a greener planet, while also bringing back that beautiful Bengaluru.

ZERO LITTER

The vision: clean streets where no one litters! Our signature litter-awareness drives remind the public of their responsibility to keep public spaces clean. We aim to inspire a pride in beautiful spaces. Each Lal Bagh Flower show with a 5 lakh visitor-base provides the opportunity to emphasize that waste goes only into a dustbin. We have drastically reduced litter at events we have worked on. We continue to spread this no-litter message, because it so directly impacts cleaner spaces. Transforming streets through habit change can happen slowly and we aim to spread clean spots across the city.

ZERO WASTE

We encourage residents to work with the mantra ‘Use Less, Reuse More’, applicable to all resources of the planet, be it water, trees or energy; it helps shape thinking about habits and choices. Specific to waste, we are rooting for zero-waste, be it at special events or for daily systems, so that we bring down waste to the bare minimum.

Two key aspects of our less-waste formula in the context of landfill, are:

Reduced consumption (changed habits that refuse disposables, particularly single-use items, and instead opt for reusable items)
Complete avoidance of plastic/polypropylene/thermocol items (banned in Karnataka anyway)

From this reduced amount of waste, we aim for further reduction to landfill simply by getting residents to segregate, recycle and compost. Many of our team members work actively in their communities, bringing change in this respect and are slowly widening the circle of influence. Our work in Lal Bagh has enabled us to fine-tune processes that reduce waste to landfill in any context and we are happy to share this formula.

SAVE WATER

Water is a precious resource that this city of a 1000 lakes, as it was once called, is now crying out for. Being number 2 on the list of world cities to run out of water makes this a critical item. Each one of us must do our bit to save every drop instead of waiting for governments to act. Again the formula of ‘Use less, Reuse more’ applies beautifully. If we drastically cut our individual consumption of fresh water, we collectively reduce the burden on city water demand and play an active role in being the change. Each of our team members is a water warrior, doing their bit to spread awareness on ways to save water in their communities. Details of our approach and ideas are available in the Resources section.

SAVE TREES

We support all related initiatives to save trees, both as part of larger city-wide campaigns and through our members in their respective areas, preventing needless tree-cutting or saving trees in danger through awareness and quick action. And while most residents may not themselves brutally chop trees, our paper usage is often wasteful by consuming precious tree resources for single-use items like paper cups/bags, etc. A changed perspective where every resident uses paper only for critical uses is something we are working towards.

SAVE ENERGY

Be it electricity, fuel or any other source of energy, we constantly remind ourselves that energy saved is energy that draws less from the earth’s stressed resources. Again we believe that each citizen can be the change in simple daily habits, be it by commuting choices, prudent use of electricity by constantly switching off when not needed, a deeper insight to the concept of carbon footprints and much more.

SMOOTHER, SAFER ROADS

Our roads and public transport network are not the best, and that is a constraint we work with in this city. But all the more reason that with simple change in our habits, we can improve matters. It is so easy to bring courtesy back to the roads and reduce bottlenecks with smoother flow, even given the heavy volume – because often, a wait of just 10 seconds for one vehicle may prevent a jam that impacts fifty others! And of course, reducing congestion by wise commuting choices – be it car-pooling, using public transport, cycling or walking – is a parallel theme we work with. With more residents believing we can improve matters in simple ways, we hope to spread our impact slowly but surely, both at an individual level and through specific drives at a larger community/city level.