Green Pledge by EU missions in Delhi [fr]

French Embassy staff members take a pledge to beat plastic pollution on World Environment Day, 5 June 2018

New Delhi, 5 June 2018

As a contribution to “Beat Plastic Pollution”, which is the theme of the World Environment Day 2018 being hosted by India from 01-05 June 2018, we will aim to:

• Eliminate the use of single-use plastic products wherever possible such as plastic straws, stirrers, cups etc. in our embassies and residences.
• We will switch from plastic bags to other material such as paper, cloth or jute bags,
• We will stop serving water in plastic bottles.
• We will request hotels and conference facilities where we organize our events to follow these principles.

In addition, we will continue to take steps to green our embassies:

1. Saving Power, saving water:

• a. Water and power consumption will be reduced by installing the necessary equipment or retro-fitting, including LED lights, insulation, optical sensors, timer devices, motion sensors etc.
• b. Solar water heaters, solar power panels and rain-water harvesting structures will be installed on the rooftops of buildings where practically feasible.
• c. Green areas watering will be with minimal water consumption.

2. Reducing and managing waste:

• a. Segregation of garbage will be continued and increased.
• b. We will ensure that segregated waste is recycled.
• c. Conversion of organic waste into natural compost will be encouraged.
• d. We will use recycled papers.
• e. We will ensure periodic collection of our electric/electronic waste and look into ways for safe disposal of other hazardous waste streams for safe disposal
• f. We will introduce green purchasing into our criteria for supply contracts, and purchase Sustainable/Environmental/Fair trade products when available

3. Education and training:

• a. We will conduct in-house awareness raising to sensitize staff and families on ways to minimise use of water and power, reduce plastic usage, segregate of garbage, re-use and repair items instead of discarding to the extent possible, and use air-conditioning moderately.
• b. We will ensure that our projects in India contributes to a better environment.