CART believes that the current activities of development undertaken by many nations have put ecology and critical life support systems in jeopardy. Hence it advocates the adoption of a holistic perspective of development, where in the protection, management and strengthening of ecosystems could itself become a means of the development process to achieve its end objectives of industry, employment generation and economic growth.
Cart has been formed to develop and implement appropriate rural technologies for achieving sustainable development.
Energy
CART believes that to render energy accessible to people, the energy base must be decentralized and inherently sustainable. At the same time there should be a judicious use of the existing non-renewable resources. There should be a gradual transition from a non -renewable to a renewable energy base. This necessitates technologies to be both appropriate and contextual. Renewable energy technologies are basically niche technologies that can be made to work in an integrated mode. They have synergy built in as they usually address many problems simultaneously.
Shelter
Shelter is classified among the basic necessities and yet remains unaffordable to most. Most of the materials and technologies used in conventional building are energy intensive, costly and unsustainable. Necessity therefore exists to employ cheap, local and less energy intensive material to render "building technology" sustainable. Local skill or easily "transferable" skill needs to be used in construction work to make shelter affordable to the ones who now need it most. Efforts must also be made to show that low cost technology and aesthetics are not necessarily at conflict with each other.
What makes CART stand out is that they have taken these technologies to the local people and convinced them as well as the local government in the use of these technologies. Today there are a large number of people who would opt for alternative technologies just as an outcome of their work. Their creations of simple yet effective technologies that can be implemented and sustained in rural areas are another interesting aspect. |
