<aside> 🧭
🏠 Home · 🌱 About · 👥 Team · 🛠️ Our Work · 📊 Impact · 📚 Knowledge · 🤝 Partners · 💚 Get Involved
</aside>
During postgraduate study at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai — work centred on climate change — Sanju Soman travelled across India doing field research. By 2014–16 the pattern was unmistakable: erratic weather, degraded ecosystems, communities already living the impacts. But the gap he kept finding was not awareness, and it was not science. The shortage was people. Rural and peri-urban India had almost nobody trained to translate either into local action.
Sanju had grown up organising in Trivandrum — blood donation drives, medical fundraising, health and social justice campaigns run with youth volunteers. So the answer was never going to be another project. It was to train people.
He asked Deepa Ananthapadmanabhan to build it with him — an educator with nearly two decades in social impact, co-founder and president of SARSAS, mentor to more than 120 young leaders — because he believed she could take the idea further than he could. Deepa is SUSTERA's Chief Executive today, and she runs the work. Dr. Priyan— an award-winning entomologist with over three decades of field science joined us : a mobiliser, a community builder and a scientist.
In 2017 we registered SUSTERA Foundation as a Section 8 non-profit in Kerala. The name joins the Latin terra (earth) with the Malayalam Susthiram — sustainable- earth.
We're still asking the same question. We just have more people asking it with us.
A collaborative space that brings together educators, environmentalists, scientists and young people to work side by side — safe, judgment-free, and focused on impactful climate solutions. We believe impactful climate solutions don't always require complex or expensive interventions; they emerge from the ability to think innovatively within the resources available. We call that frugal innovation, and it has shaped everything we've built since.
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2017 | Registered as a Section 8 non-profit in Kerala — two people and an idea |
| 2018–19 | First Climate Leadership Program cohorts; ClimateLaunchpad Kerala with ATREE-CERC |
| 2020–21 | The COVID pause — no cohorts. We regrouped |
| 2022 | Coastal Champions Fellowship; first Tamil Nadu cohort; CLPx Ecosystem Restoration in Kerala and Uttarakhand |
| 2023 | Coordinator of the G20 Mega Beach Cleanup across three Kerala venues; marine litter campaign commissioned by Trivandrum Municipal Corporation, DoECC and GIZ |
| 2023–24 | 48 cleanups, 3,099 volunteers, 11,851 kg of marine litter removed; CLP cohorts in Kerala and Tamil Nadu plant 22,000+ native trees; Beach Cleanup Protocol Handbook (GIZ); Climate Change & Mental Health report (with INECC) |
| 2024–25 | Circular Schools in five Kerala schools (12 kWp solar); Women Leadership Program in Pozhiyoor; income grows 245% as Wipro Foundation and Allianz Services partnerships begin |
| 2025–26 | Two-year community adaptation programme in Amballoor enters Phase II; riverine waste programme in Trivandrum; first Advisory Council convened; UK sister organisation (Heat Action Communities CIC) registered |
| 2026 | Strategy 2026–2030 adopted; Director of Programs joins; impact claims internally audited; this website rebuilt |
Empowering communities to lead the urgent fight against climate change by harnessing local wisdom, accelerating resilience-building, and advancing innovative solutions and funding mechanisms to mitigate immediate and future impacts.
To build a climate-resilient society by promoting sustainable lifestyles, creating inclusive networks, and enhancing collective resilience through capacity building, community engagement, and policy advocacy. We are committed to building a climate resilient and sustainable world, while valuing and preserving ecosystems and biodiversity.