A flagship programme to encourage individual and collective action on climate was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the United Nations Secretary-General recently.

Called Mission Life, where ‘LiFE’ is an acronym for “lifestyle for environment,” this Indian government initiative is designed to encourage individual behaviors like switching off vehicle engines at traffic lights, turning off taps when not in use and switching to longer-lasting alternatives to single-use plastic bags. The government estimates those actions, if taken on a national scale, could significantly limit emissions, water use and waste. The LiFE Mission was introduced by Prime Minister Modi during the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow last year. It is also a part of India’s updated list of nationally determined contributions (NDC), which was officially submitted to the UNFCCC this August this year. As the Niti Ayog website points out, Mission LiFE aims to promote an environment-conscious lifestyle that focuses on ‘mindful and deliberate utilisation’ instead of ‘mindless and destructive consumption’. It also envisages a circular economy through people’s participation. The average carbon footprint of a person in India is 0.56 tonnes per year, compared to the global average of 4 tonnes. India’s traditional knowledge, social norms and daily household practices strongly positions it to lead the narrative of addressing climate change through individual behaviours, in the form of a mass movement, LiFE.

LiFE envisions replacing the prevalent ‘use-and-dispose’ economy — governed by mindless and destructive consumption — with a circular economy, which would be defined by mindful and deliberate utilisation. The Mission intends to nudge individuals to undertake simple acts in their daily lives that can contribute significantly to climate change when embraced across the world. It plans to leverage the strength of social networks to influence social norms surrounding climate. The Mission plans to create and nurture a global network of individuals, namely ‘Pro-Planet People’ (P3), who will have a shared commitment to adopt and promote environmentally friendly lifestyles. Through the P3 community, the Mission seeks to create an ecosystem that will reinforce and enable environmentally friendly behaviours to be self-sustainable.

The approach of the LiFE Campaign includes focussing on individual behaviours and making life a mass movement by focusing on behaviours and attitudes of individuals and communities; co-creating globally and crowdsource empirical and scalable ideas from the best minds of the world, through top universities, think tanks and international organisations and leveraging local cultures and climate-friendly social norms, beliefs and daily household practices of different cultures worldwide to drive the campaign.

Indian Union environment minister Mr Bhupender Yadav in a tweet shared the list of 75 actions under the seven categories – energy, water saving, single-use plastic, sustainable food systems, waste reduction, healthy lifestyle, and e-waste. “In 2022-23, Mission LiFE will focus on ‘Change in Demand’ by nudging individuals, communities, and institutions to practice simple environment-friendly actions in their daily lives,” he tweeted.

Nineteen actions have been published under the energy saving agenda, ranging from preference for CNG/EV vehicles to installing earthen pots for cooling water. For water saving, 15 actions can be taken from adaptation of cultivation of less water-intensive crops to creating rainwater harvesting infrastructure in home, schools/offices. For reducing plastic use, 11 actions were highlighted, from using recycled plastic to use of steel lunch boxes. For sustainable food seven actions can be taken, from creating a kitchen garden to preferring locally available and seasonal food. Under the waste reduction, healthy lifestyle adaptation and e-waste reaction, 11, 9 and 4 actions respectively were highlighted from feeding unused and uncooked vegetables leftover to cattle to preferring cloud storage over a pen drive/hard drive. LiFE will look at following a three-pronged strategy at demand, supply and policy levels for changing our collective approach towards sustainability. First is by nudging individuals to practice simple yet effective environment-friendly actions in their daily lives (demand). Second is by enabling industries and markets to respond swiftly to the changing demand (supply). Third is to influence government and industrial policy to support both sustainable consumption and production (policy).

Mission LiFE will be India’s signature initiative at the UN and other international platforms for showcasing climate action and early achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, including upcoming COP27 in November. During India’s presidency of the G20, sustaining and promoting LiFE will be among key focus areas for deliberations.