Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

INSTITUTIONAL ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT ANALYSIS – CASE STUDY OF BANGALORE UNIVERSITY CAMPUS, SOUTH INDIA

Kavana R. and B.C. Nagaraja

Abstract

The purpose of doing Ecological Footprint analysis for any University is to understand and have a clear view of the Institution's Ecological impact and sustainability practices. To make staff and students realize the importance of sustainability and motivating them to get into action. It serves as a base for future policymaking. The Objective of the study is to carry out an inventory on Food, Energy, Water, Waste generation, Land use pattern and to estimate the Ecological Footprint of the Campus. The methodology, Equivalent and yield factors required for the estimations were taken from Wackernagel and Rees. From the Ecological Footprint analysis, it was found that the Bangalore University campus was weakly sustainable. By making use of the unused potential, there is still scope for adopting sustainability practices in the University making it strongly sustainable. Food followed by energy consumption was the major contributing factor for the Ecological Footprint of the campus. It is the first case study on Ecological Footprint analysis done for Bangalore University, Jnana Bharathi campus and very few studies are available in Indian universities. University can reduce the waste generation and implement solar project to reduce Ecological Footprint. Also, restoration of bio-park becomes essential to strengthen the Biocapacity of the campus.