Rajkot from Gujarat in India has been chosen as the National Earth Hour Capital in the Earth Hour City Challenge (EHCC) 2015-16. The challenge is a year-long competition among cities to promote renewable energy and prepare for climate change.
World Wide Fund (WWF) India, a leading conservation organization and one of the funders of the challenge, has been working closely with ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability in mobilizing cities to join the challenge. The challenge felicitates and awards initiatives by cities for their climate resilient actions to stimulate best practices for footprint reduction. The platform also aims at inspiring and supporting cities to become solution hotspots for building sustainable cities.
In this year’s EHCC, 125 cities from 21 countries have been evaluated by the jury. Among those, Rajkot was appreciated for its strong commitments across key areas, backed by strong low carbon actions and community engagement.
The key actions that led to the selection of Rajkot as the winning city from India were -- zero waste efforts and inspiring initiatives such as the “SMART Society Scheme”, the Bus Rapid Transport System, energy efficient street lighting, a total ban on prohibited plastic, innovative waste management practices, among others.
On the occasion, Dr Jaiman Upadhyay, Honourble Mayor, Rajkot, remarked, “I am glad to know that Rajkot city has been selected as the national capital for India under global Earth Hour City Challenge 2015-16. Rajkot Municipal Corporation is on a continuous journey to align its activities as per the international standards in different sectors and we have achieved tremendous success by adopting and implementing various innovative and sustainable measures in our local practices.” He further added, “We are especially committed towards advancing and replicating our sustainable actions in transportation, waste management and renewable energy sectors. We hope to engage with WWF-India and ICLEI South Asia in future for these kinds of programmes and want to express our greatest interest in these efforts.”
For the challenge, 45 cities from 21 countries have made it as EHCC 2016 finalists, of which Coimbatore, Pune and Rajkot were among the three Indian finalists.
Low emission development
