Sustainable Living and Biodiversity
River Valley strives hard to preserve biodiversity and promote sustainable living.
Recently, we have been chosen for a special jury award of biodiversity board of
government of Kerala for our efforts to conserve biodiversity of the campus. TS
Rajesh of the company received the award from the minister for forests and wildlife
of Kerala in a brief ceremony. We are documenting the biodiversity of the campus
using a MediaWiki and the site will be up and running soon. The campus is:
- environment friendly, plastic free zone with paperless office
- no air-conditioning and no synthetic lights during day
- self sufficient in vegetables, milk, poultry and eggs
- organic farming, no pesticides and synthetic fertilizers
- rain water harvesting and gray water recycling
- bio-gas from cow dung to meet entire fuel needs of cafeteria
- waste management and composting
- lowest energy consumption
- passionate usage of free and open source software for all our computing
and development
As everyone knows, water is the very basis of life in this planet and is the most
precious material. ...It is often told that in future, even wars between nations will be
triggered by disputes arising out of sharing water. The indiscriminate wastage of
water, abuse of natural resources, human activities with scant regard for climate
change, etc., can deplete the distribution of water challenging the very sustainability
of human life. Hence, we thought to harvest all the water that we receive from rains.
We allow the rain water either to go into earth thereby charging the fast depleting
groundwater or to collect the excess water in a huge rain water harvesting reservoir
as shown in the picture above and seldom allow the water to flown to the ocean. We
are completely self-reliant and never ever dependent on the municipal water lines for
our needs. MORE
This green studded pathway is one of the many routes that lead up to our main office
building. While in ...most companies, people crave to spent some time in nature, as a
break, away from their day jobs, for us at River Valley, nature is a live presence!
Sometimes all that is needed to take away the monotony of everyday work is a breath
of fresh air and a walk in the wilderness. We experience it here every day! MORE
Bamboos have been profusely used in the construction of our office building.
Contrary to what people believe, bamboos have ...the same weight bearing capacity
and longevity as steel and therefore, it has been used as material for reinforement in
concrete in place of steel. The railings in the pathways are made up of bamboos
with only the uppermost one being steel which within a period of a decade
got coroded due to bird droppings which necessitated replacement while
the bamboo railings still go strong without any problems of any kind. MORE
The bees and butterflies are abundantly available in our campus enriching the
biospora. The singular reason for their ...presence is the non-usage of pesticides and
synthetic fertilizers for farming in the campus. We grow our own vegetables, needless
to say, adopating organic means of farming, which is used for usage in our staff
canteen. Excess vegetables are distributed among the staffers for a sustainable price. MORE
The bees and butterflies are abundantly available in our campus enriching the
biospora. The ...singular reason for their ...presence is the non-usage of pesticides and
synthetic fertilizers for farming in the campus. We grow our own vegetables, needless
to say, adopating organic means of farming, which is used for usage in our staff
canteen. Excess vegetables are distributed among the staffers for a sustainable price. MORE
As part of self-sufficiency and sustainable living, we have a small cattle farm
consisting of five ...cows and their five calves yielding more than 22 litres of milk every
day. We need 12 litres for our daily consumption, the rest of the milk is again
distributed among needy staffers who are more than happy to carry home purest
form of milk from cows fed with natural grass and other food material naturally
available without any kind of synthetic cattle feed. These animals are kept in
adequate light, fans and even provided music, in case that makes them more happier.
MORE
This is the day time view of our campus when seen from the cafeteria. We follow the
architecture propounded by Laurie Baker by using local ...technologies and
local materials. The buildings are constructed in such a manner so that it
permit maximum air flow and light. Unlike other IT establishments, we
work in natural breeze and natural light instead of darken the rooms to
use synthetic lights and closing all ventilations to use air-conditioners. The
buildings do have exposed bricks outside without plastering and paints. MORE
Our campus is completely wheelchair accessible. One can go around the campus as
well as anywhere inside the buildings in a wheelchair.
A night view of the buildings in the campus.
Flowers galore in the campus!
