Indians have the most Green Behavior in the world!

[Chandra Kishore]

A 2010 National Geographic  and GlobeScan study found Indians having the most sustainable behavior among the 17 country studied! 

Do you claim to have a sustainable behavior? Check out your Green Behavior here and share your results with us

Check the news release here

Learn more about GREENDEX here

[Prof Dr V N Sivasankara Pillai]

It is a cultural inheritance. India has, probably, the highest proportion of vegetarians, vegetarians have live a greener life. The villagers live a BPL life, and due to low consumption of calorie and manufactured energy, they are greener than their urban counter part.

[Muriel kakani]

Indians have been world's first and foremost environmentalists. Long before the Green movement in the West, India's religions and cultures emphasized environmental protection and harmonious living with nature. According to Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, every life form is sacred. That explains why, despite all pressures, India has been able to preserve a lot of its incredible biodiversity and amazing ecological traditions.

[Vinodh Valluri]

I couldn't agree more. The ancient Vedic culture was perfectly sustainable - ecologically, economicaly, and of course, ethically. For instance, the 'rangoli' custom was a means to not only decorate the homes, but also offer rice flour, bean flour, turmeric etc to insects, hence starting a food chain around the home. People lived in harmony with nature as a common thing - no need to learn it in school! :D We relied on cows and oxen not only for a lacto vegetarian diet that provided proteins, but also to grow our food since time immemorial - oxen have been found engraved on Harappan seals! It is only in the recent centuries when Western infatuations took over India, that the environmental problems have aggravated. I personally think it is time for us to "Bring Back Bhaarat" and combine it with Independent India to make our country sustainable... What do you think? By the way, my score was 68 - I am not surprised!

[Pooja Uthappa]

Yes I think we should be proud of our status as " most green behavior" and we have some great positive feedback supporting the stance ! But is it also because we are only a developing country and the standard of living is low. Most villages do not have electricity, reducing the foot print. Although we are largely vegetarian, that is changing quickly! It would be great to look back at our earlier practices and still maintain that.

[abdul fasi]

yes pooja i agree with you.

[Biplob Chatterjee]

Statistically, yes! We are one of the most green nations in the world, with environmentally sustainable behaviour.

However, I have a hunch that it's directly attributable to our standards of living, and that's certainly not by our choice. I feel if Greendex looks at the green index of similar income groups in the world, particularly Indian middle class would be found significantly wanting in its green habit.

We waste water at our homes, our electricity is heavily subsidized and we love to waste it, we all drive cars in attrocious traffic conditions with horribly fuel in-efficient traffic conditions of our cities, we don't recycle or subscribe to community recycling of trash (except for the saving grace of having a community of poor rag-pickers, who help us in creating the green statistics), we walk very little and bike even lesser....

At the macro-level, we our industries have horrendous environmental performance, our public transport system is almost non-existing, there is either complete apathy or massive corruption in environmental governance, we have an inefficient and a large fossil fuel dependence power generation, the industries have minimal commitment towards environment and we hardly ask them a question....

I would like to live greener than what we are today, and where we are heading to.

[Vinodh Valluri]

Everyone, it would be a great service to our community if we stop using the term 'standard of living' to denote the Western ideology of monetary and fiscal muscularity. Indian culture has always focused on quality of life - not on how much we have, but with how happy we are with what we have. If village life is now 'backward', it is only because of lack of resounding support for traditional, organic, agricultural practices. It is the severely falling standards of Indian values that are reflecting in the form of industrial pollution. Although conveniences have to be accepted, they must not be the sole focus of sustenance, as they are now, even in the slums of Mumbai, where people may hardly have anything to eat, but will sit in front of their Television deities, worshipping the demi-gods of Bollywood.. Where do they have a better standard of living - in the Mumbai slum, or on their 2 acre farm in the middle of Madhya Pradesh? and where do they have a better quality of life? Reversing the loss of this innocence, the lost life of a simple village - its charming pleasures - is very hard if we stick to modern yardsticks. There can be no sustainable sustainability that is independent of overarching spiritual ethics. In the absence of such a model, the West has its foot in the mouth for over a decade now, in the tug of war of climate change.. We can stop this kind of illusory debate in India only if we realize what actually makes us 'green' is what makes India tick - spirituality, simplicity, and self-sustenance...

Pooja Uthappa said:

Yes I think we should be proud of our status as " most green behavior" and we have some great positive feedback supporting the stance ! But is it also because we are only a developing country and the standard of living is low. Most villages do not have electricity, reducing the foot print. Although we are largely vegetarian, that is changing quickly! It would be great to look back at our earlier practices and still maintain that.

[Prof Dr V N Sivasankara Pillai]

Dear All,

Most of us have a low foot print not willingly, but by the force of circumstances. If given a chance if not all, most of the people will try to reach the highest step on the ladder of "standard of living". The term "standard of living" itself is coined or defined based on certain misconceptions on the culture and economics.
Vinodh Valluri said:

Everyone, it would be a great service to our community if we stop using the term 'standard of living' to denote the Western ideology of monetary and fiscal muscularity. Indian culture has always focused on quality of life - not on how much we have, but with how happy we are with what we have. If village life is now 'backward', it is only because of lack of resounding support for traditional, organic, agricultural practices. It is the severely falling standards of Indian values that are reflecting in the form of industrial pollution. Although conveniences have to be accepted, they must not be the sole focus of sustenance, as they are now, even in the slums of Mumbai, where people may hardly have anything to eat, but will sit in front of their Television deities, worshipping the demi-gods of Bollywood.. Where do they have a better standard of living - in the Mumbai slum, or on their 2 acre farm in the middle of Madhya Pradesh? and where do they have a better quality of life? Reversing the loss of this innocence, the lost life of a simple village - its charming pleasures - is very hard if we stick to modern yardsticks. There can be no sustainable sustainability that is independent of overarching spiritual ethics. In the absence of such a model, the West has its foot in the mouth for over a decade now, in the tug of war of climate change.. We can stop this kind of illusory debate in India only if we realize what actually makes us 'green' is what makes India tick - spirituality, simplicity, and self-sustenance...

Pooja Uthappa said:

Yes I think we should be proud of our status as " most green behavior" and we have some great positive feedback supporting the stance ! But is it also because we are only a developing country and the standard of living is low. Most villages do not have electricity, reducing the foot print. Although we are largely vegetarian, that is changing quickly! It would be great to look back at our earlier practices and still maintain that.