Student From India Becomes a Global Leader in Sustainability

Since 2009, our Eco-Leaders have implemented amazing projects across the world to support sustainability in their communities. Today, we want to highlight one of our incredible students from India, Nirmit, who carried out a project to educate students in his home city on the impacts of climate change around the globe. 

During an interview, Nirmit touched on how multiple events in his life led to his passion of mitigating the impacts of climate change. From a young age, culture had a huge influence on his outlook on sustainability, but it hadn’t become a main focus of his until the COVID-19 Pandemic. During this time, waste dumping had become common practice in the community. Nirmit explained that the issue had become so bad that 2 stray cows had passed away due to excess consumption of waste. This event was a catalyst for him to take action which led him to find Grades of Green.

Throughout the 2023-2024 RISE Climate Solutions Campaign, Nirmit carried out an extraordinary project to educate students at local schools on how people around the world are dealing with the impacts of climate change. For 6 months, Nirmit connected with other RISE teams around the globe to learn about what environmental issues each group is facing and how they’re combating them. Some of the groups/individuals included Nkeng from Cameroon, the Sahel International Support Foundation in Nigeria, Northwood High School, Crescenta Valley High School, Mary Bragg Elementary School, and a group from Vietnam. After meeting with these groups, Nirmit and his friend then made a video to share sustainability educational materials, highlight stories from groups around the world, and provide solutions that students can do at a local level to combat the climate crisis. Nirmit then shared the video with local schools in his community to inspire students to take action themselves.

When asked about his experience, Nirmit said that “finding Grades of Green turned out to be one of the best Google searches [is his] life. Working with Grades of Green was an amazing experience because [he] found a mentor who [he could] call a friend and everything else all together.” Nirmit then offered some advice to anyone going into the climate space to “go out and do whatever you can because climate change is an issue that can’t be easily solved. It’s up to us! Just be active, be happy, and I wish everyone the very best on anything they want to do.”

After graduating from Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in India, Nirmit will be moving to the United States in the fall to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. With all of his success, Nirmit was also offered a full scholarship in addition to admission into NJIT’s Honors College. In the future, Nirmit plans to continue his journey in sustainability as he progresses through his career.