Green Pencil Foundation: Every winter in Delhi NCR, breathing stops being automatic and becomes a conscious effort. In Delhi, Gurugram, and Faridabad, Air Quality Index (AQI) levels frequently rise above 300, classified as “Very Poor,” and often cross 400, entering the “Severe” category.
At these levels, even healthy adults experience discomfort, while children face heightened respiratory risks. Schools limit outdoor activity, parents restrict movement, and childhood slowly retreats indoors.
What was once considered seasonal inconvenience has now become a prolonged public health emergency affecting everyday life.
It is within this harsh reality that Sandy Khanda’s Eco-Friendly Library Initiative by Green Pencil Foundation, supported through CSR by Imperial Auto Industries, finds its relevance. The initiative responds not with grand claims, but by protecting children’s health and learning during extreme pollution days.
Delhi Pollution
Air pollution in NCR is no longer just about smoggy mornings; it is deeply connected to climate change. Rising temperatures, stagnant wind patterns, and extreme weather conditions trap pollutants close to the ground for longer periods.
Medical studies link long-term exposure to PM2.5 with asthma, reduced lung capacity, repeated infections, and cognitive stress.
Some assessments suggest residents of Delhi NCR could lose several years of life expectancy due to chronic exposure. For children, this damage begins early, silently shaping their health during crucial developmental years.
Eco-Friendly Library
Amid this grim reality, the Eco-Friendly Library Initiative by Green Pencil Foundation, supported through CSR by Imperial Auto Industries, offers a thoughtful and humane response. These libraries are not positioned as solutions to air pollution but as protective spaces for children navigating it.
Designed with natural ventilation, indoor plants, daylight access, and calm reading corners, they reduce indoor pollution exposure. During severe AQI days, these spaces allow children to learn without sacrificing their health.
Learning Without Compromising Health
For students in government schools and low-income communities across NCR, these eco-friendly libraries often become the safest indoor environment available. When classrooms feel congested and outdoor air is unsafe, these spaces provide comfort, continuity, and emotional calm.
Children can read, sit quietly, and focus without the constant strain of polluted surroundings. The initiative understands a simple truth: learning cannot flourish where breathing itself feels difficult. By prioritising children’s physical well-being, these libraries quietly restore dignity to the learning process.
Sustainable Practices
What fills these libraries is just as important as how they are built. The initiative promotes book reuse through donation drives, reducing paper demand and encouraging sharing over consumption. In a country where deforestation worsens climate change, reused books become lessons in sustainability.
Climate education is woven gently into storytelling and discussion, not delivered as lectures. Children read about forests, rivers, and clean air, then connect these ideas to their own smog-filled mornings, making climate change personal and understandable rather than distant.
Shared Responsibility
Corporate participation through Imperial Auto’s CSR support highlights how industry can move beyond compliance to meaningful community engagement.
In regions burdened by vehicular and industrial pollution, such partnerships send a powerful message: economic growth and environmental responsibility must progress together.
Eco-friendly libraries will not clean Delhi NCR’s air overnight, but they do something equally vital. They protect children today, offering breathing space, emotional security, and hope. Sometimes, impactful climate action begins quietly, between a child, a book, and a safe place to read.
Green Pencil Foundation
Green Pencil Foundation is an Indian education and sustainability NGO dedicated to building learning environments that are both inclusive and environmentally conscious.
Founded by Sandy Khanda, with a mission to make education meaningful, the foundation works across schools and communities to promote eco-friendly practices, creative learning, and social responsibility.
Through initiatives like eco-friendly libraries, climate education workshops, book reuse campaigns, and community engagement programs, the foundation helps children understand environmental challenges while nurturing curiosity, resilience, and mindful citizenship.
Its work bridges education with real-world action, empowering students and communities to adopt sustainable habits that extend beyond the classroom.
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
At The Logical Indian, we believe solutions to systemic crises must centre on people, especially children who have no control over the air they breathe. The Eco-Friendly Library Initiative stands out for addressing an urgent reality with empathy rather than spectacle.
By combining health, education, sustainability, and responsible corporate participation, it demonstrates how small, grounded interventions can make a tangible difference. In a time when climate headlines often overwhelm, such initiatives remind us that protecting childhood itself is an essential act of climate justice.
Also Read: Periods of Pride: How Sandy Khanda’s One Campaign Is Turning Menstrual Taboos into Climate Action
