Shilfa Jerome is a Sustainability Consultant in Germany interested in the intersection of sustainability with agriculture, green infrastructure and climate change.
My life vision is to use my creativity and people skills to empower and inspire people to become self-sustaining.
Bochum, Germany
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I was born in Tamilnadu, India in 1994. I am happy about three things about my city: its ancient history, agriculture and people. I walk towards my life vision with these values in mind: Passion, Persistence, Simplicity, Wisdom and Grace.
Phyto Elysian solutions
Work Experience
While working at ZTC International Landscaping as a project coordinator, I strongly believed in one thing: GROWING PLANTS SHOULD BE SIMPLE.
So, I worked around ZTC's Living Wall model eventually reducing the materials used, bringing precision in irrigation supply, and streamlining the plant species which made maintenance easier.
Asking questions is my tool to find answers. After working on a few living wall projects I asked myself, Are the living wall technologies right enough to solve the Urban Heat Island effect? or in Taylor Swift's slang, would Band-Aid fix bullet holes?
In 2020, I was invited to conduct research in Germany on Living Walls. Funded by Humboldt Foundation, each year German Chancellor Fellows were selected from India, Brazil, Russia, China and the US.
My project was focused on assessing the environmental impacts of Living Walls by performing Life Cycle Assessment.
It was a priviledge to work with Prof. Manfred Köhler on my research project in Germany.
Seventeen new months of learning language, adapting culture, making friends and my spellbound research project which at last made sense, wow..it was a breathtaking journey.
Enchanted by flower meadows
Thanks to Lara and Felix for the opportunity to work with Artenglück. Here, I worked meticulously on the ecological mapping of different species right from reptiles to butterflies to earthworms living in their commercial meadows.
With the huge data, we were able to bring out the so-called KPIs which led to an effective dashboard.
Some interesting Projects
Global Architectural Competition 2021
Home Base Earth is a project focused on helping migrants to build homes for themselves using simple architecture.
This project is the brainchild of Mr Florian Betzler, climate architect, Germany.
The first phase is to involve young architects around the world to design sustainable cities. We collected wonderful ideas.
The winner's project is in the testing stage currently. Check out more here https://homebase-earth.org/.
Rain Water Green Roofs-2019
It was an incredible experience to successfully bring an international collaboration between my former company ZTC, a Japanese construction company, and my alma mater the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore. We together conducted pilot research on green roof technology that survives in rainwater.
The research was successful enough that it survived on rainwater with occasional irrigation in summer. Unlike green roofs in Bangalore with lawns or sedums, we used locally adapted species that could survive dry spells.
Seed Ball method of Afforestation-2018
A simple act could regrow forests? A mudball embedded with a tree seed is called a seed ball or as I call it a seed bomb.
My teammate (Mr Reddy Prasad) and I along with 200 student volunteers made 2500 seed balls and planted them in the university campus on the Environmental week 2018. I encourage everyone to carry few seed balls (native species) with you when you travel. Plant them in barren lands.
Education
Taking up Bachelor's in Horticulture was one of the best decisions of my life. I learned about the behaviour of the whole ecosystem from macro trees to microorganisms; from the rearing of honeybees, grazing the cattle, driving tractors, and training farmers. Could I ask for more experience?
MBA in Agricultural Business Management: The entrepreneurial spirit inside nudged me to take this course. But, to be honest, I was a headache to my professors. I demanded a hands-on MBA experience, whereas my curriculum was mostly built around written assignments and exams. So, I drew a business plan for Innovative Green Roofs with my teammates and started working on it. We discovered a new potential business and a new talent, Business Networking.
Certifications
Life Cycle Assessment
Open LCA- A software to perform Life Cycle Assessment of products or services. Completed Level- Intermediate
UNCC- E Learn
Climate Change: From learning to Action
Green Wall and Green Roof Professional
Trained by Green Roof for Healthy Cities conducted in Bangalore 2018
Certifications
Carbon Farming
This certification course from Indigo Agriculture has covered extensive topics from basics of soil biology, principles of carbon farming, live interviews from farmers and certification procedures on certifying a farm.