Author: Ashutosh Kumar Singh and Harishankar Singh
For years, the question universities asked themselves was simple: how green is our campus? Solar panels went up, water was recycled, and buildings became energy efficient. All of it mattered. But the climate crisis has quietly changed the question. It is no longer testing how sustainable our campuses look. It is testing how relevant our graduates are to the world they are about to enter.
That is a harder question to answer, and a more important one. India is racing towards rapid economic growth while trying to honour its commitments under the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. That balancing act will not be managed by campus infrastructure alone. It will be managed by the engineers, scientists, managers, technologists, and policymakers this generation of universities sends out into the workforce. The National Education Policy 2020 already points in this direction through its emphasis on multidisciplinary, experiential learning. What remains is the harder work of turning that policy language into everyday classroom practice.
The job market is not waiting for universities to catch up. LinkedIn’s Global Green Skills Report found that demand for green skills has been growing at roughly double the rate at which qualified talent is entering the workforce, a gap of 11.6 per cent demand growth against 5.6 per cent supply growth. The World Economic Forum expects green skill demand to rise by 22 per cent across mainstream sectors, not just energy and environment but manufacturing, finance, healthcare, and IT as well. UNESCO IESALC has made a related point: sustainability education only works if it teaches systems thinking, so that graduates can see how technology, society, economy, and environment are woven together, rather than treating sustainability as a subject that lives in its own silo.
That last point is really the crux of it. Sustainability cannot stay parked in an elective course or a specialised department. It has to move into the mainstream of how every discipline is taught.
We see this playing out in three shifts that universities need to make, deliberately and together. The first is curricular. Every discipline, not just environmental science, should show students how sustainability shapes real professional decisions: climate-resilient engineering, sustainable materials, responsible finance and ESG, resource-efficient computing, and sound public policy. The goal is not to turn every graduate into a sustainability specialist. It is to make sure no graduate leaves unprepared for the climate questions their profession will eventually put in front of them.
The second is spatial. Campuses themselves should function as working laboratories rather than backdrops. Renewable energy systems, water management facilities, biodiversity parks, and waste infrastructure are more useful to students as living problems to study and improve than as achievements to display. That is where theory starts to feel like practice.
The third is governance. Sustainability has to be owned, not delegated. Universities should encourage every department to adopt SDGs that align with its own disciplinary strengths, build them into teaching, research, and outreach, and track outcomes honestly over time. It becomes institutional only when it is not just one office’s responsibility.
At Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, we are building towards this approach through curriculum redesign, sustainability-focused programmes, experiential learning, interdisciplinary research, and departmental ownership of SDGs. The intent is not simply to create a greener campus, but to send out graduates capable of leading sustainable change in industry and public life.
A green campus signals institutional intent; climate-ready graduates demonstrate institutional impact. The universities that matter a decade from now will be those that embed sustainability into how they teach, research, and govern, making it an integral part of how the university works.
That is really what this shift asks of higher education: not one more course or one more centre, but a rethink of what a university is for, educating people equipped to build a future that is more resilient, more equitable, and genuinely sustainable.
Associate Professor, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology