Who is Supriya Sahu? The Tamil Nadu IAS officer who got UN's highest environmental honour

Supriya Sahu, Tamil Nadu's Additional Chief Secretary in the Environment, Climate Change and Forests Department, has been presented with 2025 UN Champions of the Earth award in inspiration and action category, the United Nations' highest environmental honour.

Sahu is recognised for her pioneering and longstanding leadership on critical environmental challenges in India, including plastics and wildlife conservation. Let us know more about her:

Born on July 27, 1968, Sahu is Additional Chief Secretary to the Government of Tamil Nadu and head of the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Forests.

According to her profile shared by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Sahu loves elephants and believes that there is so much to learn from them about resilience and family bonding.

She is a pioneer in sustainable cooling and ecosystem restoration to "protect vulnerable communities while reducing greenhouse gas emission".

She travelled across the country during her childhood with her family, which made her fall in love with the nature.

During her time at Nilgiris as the District Collector, Sahu said that when she saw animals eating plastic garbage, she realised "the planet is choking", which led her to launch 'Operation Blue Mountain', a project aimed at eliminating single-use plastic in the Nilgiris.

In Tamil Nadu, Sahu introduced Tamil Nadu Climate Company, with projects that help with urban heat. Giving an example of students, Sahu said that summer months are harsh on them, which led her to launch the Cool Roof Project.

The project addressed the issue while doing simple things like painting the roofs white to reflect sunlight, ensuring natural ventilation, implementing solar power and energy efficient fans, and harvesting rainwater in 200 public "green schools".

Sahu's most recent transformative work on sustainable cooling is highlighted as a model for a warming world.

(With PTI inputs)