OBITUARY: Sougata Nandi

It is with immense sadness that I write of the passing away of Sougata Nandi, the Founder & CEO of 3e Advisory; Author of the book, Energy Management in Real Estate: The Secrets to Success and the Chairman of the Climate Control Awards till 2024. Sougata, an alumnus of the renowned IIT Kharagpur and IIT Bombay, lost his long battle with cancer and breathed his last on July 26 in Dubai. He was 55.

I first met Sougata in 2002, when he was part of the Tricolour Initiatives in Dubai. This was before Climate Control Middle East was launched, in December 2005. The magazine helped us re-connect, and what a fruitful and longstanding engagement it was! I would often meet him at his TECOM Investments office, where he worked as Executive Director (Asset Management and Sustainable Development). His earnestness and energy were infectious, and his no-nonsense approach to sustainable development was like a breath of fresh air, at a time when greenwashing was rampant the world over. As an engineer and Green Building professional – he was the second LEED AP from the UAE – he embodied integrity and intellectual honesty; those qualities shone through in the several articles he wrote in Climate Control Middle East. There was no personal agenda to his writings – he wrote as an anguished observer, as someone who cared deeply for the environment and wanted to do his bit for the cause of energy efficiency and climate change mitigation. One such article was on the mindless approach to repurposing of buildings without a care for the consequences relating to energy efficiency and Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). The words stay with me to this day.

Perhaps one of his most significant contributions to the magazine and CPI Industry was as Chairperson of the Jury of the Climate Control Awards. A judge from the inaugural edition, in 2011, he took over as Chair from that other engineering champion, Ghaleb Abusaa, the CEO of en3 Solutions, and helped steer the ship in ensuring the Awards evaluation exercise was relevant, uncompromising and true to its purpose of identifying authentic outstanding efforts in the HVACR and allied sectors towards the twin causes of socioeconomic development and sustainable development.In a long and distinguished career, he won several awards, including the Emirates Energy Awards, in 2007, but perhaps his greatest legacy will be his mentorship of young engineers, who he firmly set on the path to a rigorously scientific approach to sustainable development.Rest in peach, champion! You will be much missed.

(Accompanying picture of Sougata Nandi is from a CPI Industry file photo from 2011, when he was at the prime of his career.)

Post Author: Surendar Balakrishnan, Co-Founder CPI Industry and Editor Climate Control Middle East