The mission of the Auroville Earth Institute (AVEI) is to:

• Revive traditional skills, and to link ancestral and vernacular traditions of raw earth construction with the modern technologies of stabilized earth.
• Enable and empower people to build their dwellings using earthen techniques.
• Develop cost effective technologies, affordable to all.
• Respect our Mother Earth, while using its natural resources to build a sustainable future.
• Teach and practice sustainable resource management (for both human and natural resources).
• Demonstrate that earth, as a building material, can be used to create modern, progressive, eco-friendly and safe habitats.

Over the last 34.5 years, Auroville Earth Institute (AVEI) has become one of the world’s top centres for excellence in earthen architecture, a leader in the research, development, promotion and transfer of earth-based building technologies and one of the most rapidly growing carbon economy in the world. AVEI has worked in 40 countries to promote and disseminate knowledge in earth architecture, and has garnered 15 awards for its work (four international awards and eleven national awards).

The Auroville Earth Institute is the Representative and Resource Centre for Asia of the UNESCO Chair “Earthen Architecture, Constructive Cultures and Sustainable Development”.

This Chair aims to accelerate the dissemination of scientific and technical know-how on earthen architecture amongst higher education institutions, in the following three domains: environment and heritage, human settlements, and economy and production.

The Auroville Earth Institute is part of a world network with CRATerre (The International Centre for Earth Construction, France), ABC Terra (Brazil) and a number of other Indian and worldwide NGO’s. A training convention has been established with the School of Architecture of Grenoble, France, for offering long-term training courses to their students.

The Auroville Earth Institute is also a member of Basin South Asia (Basin SA), Regional Knowledge Platform, which is committed to “developing knowledge systems and promoting collaborative action to enable access by the poor in South Asia to sustainable habitat and livelihoods”.