The question that set Manav Subodh thinking about climate action was simple: why should a young person have to leave home to find a decent livelihood? As Founder of 1M1B and Curator of 1.5 Matters, he noticed a gap between India’s green transition and the availability of skilled workers. While companies needed people to install solar systems, maintain electric vehicles and manage resources efficiently, young people in smaller towns lacked the necessary training. To bridge this gap, Subodh took green skills training closer to the youth. At Kuppam in Andhra Pradesh, 1M1B (One Million for One Billion) established a Green Skills Academy, starting with 30 students and courses tailored to employer needs. “With AICTE and support from Salesforce, our green internships enable students to audit campus water use, assess energy consumption and work on waste management. By early 2026, over 23,000 students had completed internships, generating more than 3,500 projects,” he says.
The bigger challenge, he believes, is making sustainability economically viable. “We start with employer demand, test solutions locally and build partnerships that enable scale. The real test of climate action is whether it helps someone earn a better living while using fewer and greener resources,” he adds.
For architects Neha Jain and Piyush Sharma of Ekarth Studio, sustainability begins with seeing a building as part of a larger living ecosystem. Beyond its inhabitants are the trees, animals, soil, water and biodiversity that existed on the site before construction. “Our approach is to create for people without compromising the well-being of the larger ecosystem,” they say.
This philosophy shapes their design and construction, bringing architects, structural engineers and artisans together while exploring traditional materials such as bamboo, earth, lime and stone as viable structural systems. However, they believe sustainability need not come at the cost of modern comforts. “The challenge is to integrate environmental responsibility into changing aspirations and contemporary living rather than asking people to step away from them,” they add.
At Aranyani, Founder and Creative Director Tara Lal believes that people protect what they feel connected to. The organisation works with conservation and restoration projects, supports grassroots, community-led initiatives through grants and uses films and editorial projects to bring environmental stories to a wider audience. Its recent creation, the Aranyani Pavilion at Delhi’s Sunder Nursery, takes this engagement into the public realm, allowing visitors to experience ecological ideas through architecture, sound, art and emotion.
“The form of the work may change, but its purpose remains the same: to bring people closer to nature, and through nature, closer to themselves,” says Lal. She believes urban life has distanced people from the natural world. “We protect what we feel connected to, and somewhere in our pursuit of ‘progress’, many of us have lost that connection with nature. Through Aranyani, I want people, especially in cities, to feel how closely their own lives are connected to the living world,” she says.
Turning concern into lasting action, however, is not always straightforward. Having witnessed conservation projects succeed, struggle and fail, Lal believes community ownership is essential. “People need real agency and ownership, supported by structures that allow a project to continue after its original founders or funders leave,” she adds.
Whether it is creating green livelihoods, building homes that respect their ecosystems or reconnecting city dwellers with nature, these initiatives share a common belief: sustainability must move beyond good intentions and become part of how people work, live, and build.