On Energy and Buildings
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We organised a stakeholder convening focused on land as a critical resource, aimed at identifying strategies to navigate land availability constraints in the context of scaling up renewable energy and other land-intensive development pathways. The session leveraged the SAFARI-DHARTI tool to facilitate structured, participatory dialogue among attendees. Event page for more details:
Land Constraints to Development Pathways: A Roundtable on SAFARI-DHARTI - CSTEP -
We released an Issue Brief, titled ‘India’s legacy waste crisis: A call for action’. It examines legacy waste as a dynamic and persistent source of pollution that threatens water security, air quality, climate objectives, and urban development and discusses the associated policy challenges and potential interventions.
- Anushree Aggrawal and Kaveri Ashok from the Sustainability team were part of the Socratus x DESTA convening on systems mapping of the waste sector, a series of hybrid workshops held between April and June.
On Water
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Water Ecosystem and Policy Mapping
a. Final set of data collection and site visits have been concluded.
b. Policy briefs based on the policy mapping exercise are underway.
c. The entire collated dataset from the stakeholder ecosystem will be shared with a suitable platform (RMF’s or India Water Portal) for display, apart from CSTEP’s. -
Climate Risk-Based Urban Planning and Decision Support Tool for Dibrugarh and Silchar Towns in Assam with Support from Janagraha
a. The first round of city-level inception meetings was held with the District Planning Committee of Silchar and Dibrugarh towns, in the presence of their respective Municipalities and District Commissioners, for understanding the project scope, requirements, and inter-departmental coordination.
b. A separate coordination meeting was held with the Director and team from the Directorate of Town & Country Planning, Government of Assam, in Guwahati to clarify the finer details of data availability, including guidance on their planned drainage inventory in Silchar.
c. Together with city officials, we carried out site visits in both towns to understand local conditions and identify suitable locations for monitoring. -
We are in advanced stages of signing an MOU with the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department to develop a decision support tool for springshed management, modeled on the Composite Landscape Assessment & Restoration Tool (CLART) developed by FES.
On Air Quality
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Sensor Data Standardisation
CSTEP is coordinating with Tarkam to standardise the sensor calibration and data protocols. These efforts will ensure that willing partners can also use this information to push their data to the open air quality NOTF dashboard. -
Bengaluru Urban Sensor Deployment Plan
CSTEP has developed a scientific methodology to plan a sensor network in Bengaluru. The methodology can also be used to set up measurement locations in any Indian city. The report has been shared with Aurassure. We are also working with Aurassure to ensure the planned sensor deployment is useful for the community and tracks major pollution hotspots across the city. Once deployed, the dense sensor network will be able to identify new pollution hotspots that could not be captured with the existing sparse network. -
CSTEP is also partnering with Oorvani Foundation for the Bengaluru Hyperlocal Air Quality Design Jam. The event will be held on 25 July 2026 at Rainmatter Foundation in Jayanagar, Bengaluru.
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At the eighth edition of the India Clean Air Summit (ICAS) 2026, CSTEP will organise a short convening / side meeting with major sensor testing partners, aggregators, and manufacturers to work towards a common minimum standard for sensor testing protocols, calibration, and output formats.
Additional Update: CSTEP has published a technical report titled ‘Performance Evaluation of Multipollutant Air Quality Sensors at Indi-SET Bengaluru (link here)’, which assesses the short- and medium-term performance of low-cost air quality sensors available in India. The report underscores the importance of sensor calibration and robust QA/QC protocols to ensure reliable long-term air quality data in Bengaluru.
