Coal is the force behind any nation’s rapid growth, but now the pattern seems to be shifting steadily. Despite a huge population, India is committed to fulfilling its national obligations to the international community at the highest level. And by halting many old thermal generation units, India has set another precedent for the rest of the world that reducing and regulating coal usage is conceivable.

This month, our cover story titled, ‘Green Strategies for India’ highlights that mineral operations will help India further develop economically, if environmental and social factors, including, air, water, land, biodiversity is responsibly dealt with. India is willing to create a self-reliant ecosystem where environmental violations regarding unsustainable mining operations such as fly ash dumping, fire management, and environmental clearance are seriously accounted for and environmental performance increased, significantly. Although mineral assets are critical for economic growth, they have a deteriorating role in evaporation of water sources, expanding and deepening human–wildlife conflict, and extending atmosphere emergency. This is the reason an adjusted methodology is basic with regards to the utilization of characteristic assets by and large, and mining specifically. The time has come to introspect within geography, conduct robust planning, and get the plan to ground execution.

With climate change occurring, it becomes important to develop utilization of renewables and firmly push the progress to clean fuel. With regards to fuel, the objective is to guarantee reasonable, dependable, feasible, and present-day fuel for all. The test for the UN, and the world, is to quickly accelerate the move towards renewables and kick the coal propensity for the last time. Also, to quicken this, in 2020, the UN propelled a Decade of Action, to launch endeavours to accomplish the objectives that make up the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

In construction and building industry, pollutants are generated at every stage starting from extraction and manufacturing of building materials to their eventual demolition and disposal. The amount of building waste ending up in landfills is just one of the many issues created by the unchecked construction activities globally. The feature story this month talks about the circular economy strategies that could help the construction industry. Creating standard designs for common building elements can go a long way in enhancing their circularity. It would ensure uninterrupted flow between stages in the material loop regardless of their point of origin. Establishing a nation-wide benchmark would immensely assist the effort to reuse and remanufacture the components. Regulations will also have to be formulated for quality control for the secondary materials re-entering the loop and incentives introduced for encouraging usage of the same. The use of local materials is another way to narrow the energy loop and to benefit the local economy. This method of construction and dismantling could become more efficient if the materials used are also created and installed in ways that enable their reuse.