$ 1 : 16
For every $1 of value invested, One Young World Ambassadors deliver $16 of social value, based on a Social Return on Investment analysis of 42 Ambassador-led initiatives addressing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2022
SDG Impact Tracker
Interested in supporting impactful initiatives led by young leaders? Search this database of over 350 projects from the One Young World Community to find out more.
Smart Cheli
Pratiksha is the CEO of Smart Cheli, a female-led social enterprise that aims to balance the gender gap in STEM fields. Smart Cheli’s programme is targeted towards young girls between the ages of 8 and 18 years. The programme works by connecting education with STEM hands-on learning experiences in coding, critical thinking, and electronics. Pratiksha’s aim is to enhance critical thinking, cultivate the imaginations and problem solving skills of young girls, and expose them to STEM from an early age.
With backing and assistance from Bristol Myers Squibb, Smart Cheli successfully scaled their business over the course of the Lead2030 programme. The organisation plans to reach more than 500 young girls this year and has already grown its team with two additional staff joining the Smart Cheli team. The organisation has also extended its work with local government in Nepal, and updated its STEM kit with three new projects, bringing the total to five.
The funding Smart Cheli has received from Bristol Myers Squibb helped the team execute a new plan, and the mentorship they received sharpened their leadership abilities. The organisation is planning to develop a STEM lab in its own space where girls can come and experiment with STEM-related subjects and technologies. Additionally, Smart Cheli’s STEM kit has become more market-centric, which has contributed to the overall growth of the organisation and its social impact. Lead2030 has allowed Pratiksha to continue building her organisation and expand its long-term vision to increase the participation of young women in STEM fields.
“Being a Lead2030 challenge winner has helped me gain a new identity. It gives me exposure to other work. This identity helped me to connect with other organisations in Nepal. Overall it helped open a gate for new opportunities and scale up our initiative.”
- 500 young girls will be introduced to STEM subjects
You Got This!
You Got This! - Caribbean [coordinating region]
Tamara Tanis
Business for Social Good
Tamara Tanis was working at KPMG in the Cayman Islands in their financial risk department when she first learnt of One Young World. Passionate about mental wellbeing and cognizant of the pressures often associated with those working in financial services, Tamara set about enhancing and elevating KPMG’s pre-existing wellness initiatives in her aim to help remove the stigma surrounding mental health which is so evident worldwide.
Delegates to One Young World from KPMG create an initiative that they present to internal leadership as part of their application process. Tamara’s plan for an enhanced wellbeing initiative was warmly received and supported by KPMG internally, but also as part of a bigger, island-wide initiative. The initiative, “You Got This!”, now supports other mental health projects across the Cayman Islands through the means of awareness and advocacy. At the One Young World Summit in London, 2019, Tamara was able to develop her ideas alongside her peers from other corporate delegations.
Her first step was developing a set of initiatives, partnering with KPMG’s Wellness Committee across the firm’s workstreams. While KPMG already had pre-established wellness drives, including access for every employee to local mental health experts, annual health checks and a range of in-office wellness facilities, the group organised their first Mental Health Awareness Month in 2021, bringing in psychologists and mental health experts to deliver workshops for KPMG’s employees, as well as offering training for employees to become mental health advocates.
Managers at the firm were taught how to spot the signs of mental health challenges, and You Got This! organised massage therapy sessions for employees. The initiative also distributed snacks and supplements at the height of KPMG’s busiest period. Tamara worked with leadership to secure a larger wellness budget, ensuring longevity for the initiative to run throughout the entire year and embed it into the future of the firm.
During the COVID-19 lockdown in the Cayman Islands, the You Got This! team organised online workshops and information sessions on mental health, with their dedicated Wellness Wednesdays. These projects all contributed to a positive atmosphere across the firm, and helped boost the morale of Tamara’s colleagues during what was a difficult time for many around the world.
Prior to You Got This!, KPMG was supporting local organisations in the Cayman Islands, particularly those working with young people. Tamara’s work has scaled this further, encouraging the partnership with community groups to sponsor a mental health symposium and organise panel discussions. The initiative has maintained partnerships with non-profit organisations and government entities to raise mental health awareness across the island. You Got This! has helped bolster the company’s dedication to mental health awareness, with over 400 people actively participating in its projects or attending presentations. Tamara hopes to expand the initiative across the Caribbean region.
“A lot of us went to the Summit that year thinking, okay, we want to really do our own non-profit with mental health. But I remember in one workshop with about 15 of us, we realised, well, many people are facing the same issues. It really pushed me to make a difference, and pushed me to be more of a leader in my career.”
NEXT
NEXT is a grassroots community within Zurich Insurance that was formed in the aftermath of the One Young World Summit in London, 2019. The initiative is focused on promoting intergenerational dialogue and SDG 17 - Partnerships for the SDGs - but its work also touches on other key areas around sustainability and social impact. NEXT has continued to expand its operations, with 10 different country hubs, increasing its reach and impact in the Asia-Pacific region in particular.
The team has steadily increased the range of topics discussed during their annual NEXT Virtual Summit, as well as increasing collaboration with external speakers. The event was well-received, with more than 100+ people in attendance in 2022.
At One Young World, NEXT led a workshop on how to launch and maintain internal movements within companies. This outreach has led to conversations and collaborations between the NEXT team and the I'M-Possible Movement at Holcim, as well as other One Young World Partners looking to launch similar communities within their companies. The NEXT team also organised a similar workshop which was open to everyone. They also provide feedback and support to the Z Zurich Foundation’s One Young World Scholars to increase their impact.
NEXT is collaborating with the World Economic Forum (WEF), and was selected as one of the winners of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship’s Corporate Changemakers Challenge. The collaborations with the WEF and Schwab Foundation include speaking opportunities at WEF events, and monthly sessions to determine the NEXT team’s aims and any challenges they may face in implementation. Creating a community is central to this collaboration. NEXT has built connections with the other winners of this award to further social impact and will be able to connect with various initiatives across the world through its work with the WEF.
NEXT is organising a Spanish-language series called ‘Conversatorio’ that will inspire and share knowledge with young leaders in the Latin American community. The first round in the series is centred around leadership and sustainability and will be co-hosted by Wom-en, an NGO that focuses on climate impact resilience with gender perspective that the NEXT team discovered through One Young World. They are also working closely with One Young World’s Coordinating Ambassador for Central America and Mexico, Isabel Menéndez, on the second round of the series.
“The Summit was a huge experience for me. At the beginning, I thought that people in corporate spaces did not have the chance to have a big impact because we are in another role. But by the end of the Summit, I understood that if we collaborate and we provide the knowledge or spaces, or the things that we have, we can not only have our own impact but also increase the impact of others.”
Courtney Sunna, AstraZeneca
Courtney Sunna, AstraZeneca - United States
Courtney Sunna
Leadership Biographies
Courtney began her social impact journey as a UN Youth Delegate for Innovation and Sustainable Development and Director at LEAP (Leadership and Executive Acceleration Program), a non-profit women’s leadership programme, where she built a social impact module in which the participants were paired with other non-profit organisations active in local communities to help them solve business challenges. It was at a LEAP session that Courtney first learned about One Young World.
Courtney attended the One Young World Summit The Hague, 2018, as an AstraZeneca Scholar. The Summit proved to be an unprecedented, eye-opening experience, giving her a new perspective on global issues as well as connecting her with a community of young change makers that she maintains to this day. At the Summit, Courtney met the AstraZeneca executive responsible for the company’s Scholarship Delegation. She proposed co-building an AstraZeneca One Young World Scholar Alumni Network. These conversations ultimately led to Courtney applying for a role at AstraZeneca.
Courtney now works as Director of Global Community Investment at AstraZeneca and leads on the company’s Scholarship Delegation to One Young World and Young Health Programme (YHP). The YHP is a philanthropic programme that combines community programmes, research, advocacy, and supports young leaders, working with over 50 non-profit organisations across 39 countries to catalyse change at scale. The YHP is AstraZeneca’s largest community investment initiative, and has directly reached over nine million young people worldwide.
As part of the YHP, Courtney launched AstraZeneca’s Impact Fellowship initiative, to enable young leaders to address health inequities and drive greater impact. The Impact Fellowship will enable 15 young health leaders from around the world to attend One Young World through a Scholarship. Each Fellow will receive grants of either $10,000 or $50,000 to implement a project within their non-profit organisation, in addition to receiving professional and leadership development opportunities including One Young World Academy passes, mentorship from AstraZeneca employees and Mini-MBA training to help them scale their impact.
Courtney is also broadening how the YHP considers health equity to ensure that the programme continues to respond to the unique health challenges that young people face, especially those living in vulnerable communities and settings. She also leads AstraZeneca’s global medical product donations, humanitarian response and relief, and equipment donations efforts.
“The Summit really is a life-changing experience and it absolutely shifted my perception on many of the global challenges the world is facing. It is inspiring to meet with so many passionate young people who have taken their ideas and turned them into life-changing initiatives that are making the world a better place. I hope to enable even more young leaders to have this opportunity as we all have the power to shape a healthier, more equitable future.”
Change Makers
Change Makers - Europe [main region]
Firmenich Ambassadors
Business for Social Good
Change Makers is a global initiative within Firmenich, founded by One Young World Ambassadors in 2016, to create change through mindset, action, and community. The group receives sponsorship from Firmenich’s executive leadership, and the core team presents to them four or five times a year. There have been 45 core members, all of whom are One Young World Ambassadors, managing a community of more than 500 Firmenich employees. The Delegates Firmenich sends to each Summit become the lead team of Change Makers until the next Summit cycle begins. Although the core team changes yearly, Change Makers actively maintains projects from previous years.
Change Makers has a consolidated goal each year, which is developed in consultation with senior leadership. In 2017, the team focused on fostering talent amongst young employees, providing them with opportunities for personal and professional development and visibility through mentoring and buddy programmes, community building, and the launch of a digital platform.
In 2018, Change Makers shifted focus to digital affairs, including digital initiatives and digital transformation. The project evolved to be more inclusive and diverse across all levels of the company, particularly broadening its age range, and organised sessions on the future of work. The 2019 iteration connected and collaborated with communities. The team focused on raising awareness within Firmenich on how employees could contribute to community-related initiatives. They organised external events, including an event with Cornell University on food technology, hosted workshops on wellbeing, promoted the Valuable 500’s disability inclusion initiative, and helped support 16 local communities through CSR outreach.
The 2020 core team integrated Firmenich’s business strategy alongside social initiatives. This resulted in development of PATH2FARM, which will trace Firmenich ingredients to ensure supply chain transparency through outreach to farming communities. Building on this, the 2021 team emphasised business transformation, embracing and assisting innovation within the company by participating on the company’s ESG Strategy for 2030 and China strategy. Finally, the 2022 core team re-engaged the Firmenich community following the COVID-19 pandemic by innovating their digital platform, creating a leadership development programme, and driving recommendations for ISCC Certification.
“I've always had a passion for creating meaningful impact, and attending the One Young World Summit provided me with a structured framework to approach this goal. Through my involvement in large international organisations, I realised the power that individuals possess to drive positive change on a global scale. Being a part of the core team was a transformative experience, providing me with valuable leadership skills and opportunities to interact with top-level executives and the CEO. Attendees of One Young World, sponsored by my employer Firmenich, continue to hone their skills and apply them within the company. Overall, the Summit and my involvement in the core team has been a truly enriching experience that has helped shape my career and my approach to creating a positive impact.”
Barley Straw Pack
Barley Straw Pack - Belgium
Farida Bensadoun
Business for Social Good
Sustainability has been at the core of Farida’s work as a Global Packaging Innovation Engineer at AB InBev for many years. She has led projects to reduce AB InBev’s packaging material impact, making it recyclable as well as lighter. The Straw Pack project began in 2018 as a way of moving away from trees as a source of packaging material by using barley or wheat straw as alternative raw material.
Farida found that the One Young World Summit in Manchester, 2022, helped her consolidate her thinking on the necessity of cross-industry collaboration. Observing what’s happening elsewhere to draw lessons and inspiration from a broader range of sources was of great value. Farida also supported AB InBev’s 100+ Accelerator team in its work at the Summit.
The Straw Pack project uses alternative fibre materials to reduce AB InBev’s packaging dependence on trees. To ensure the project has as low a carbon footprint as possible, Farida’s team uses local materials. The novel pulping process for the straw developed by Sustainable Fiber Technologies (SFT) was used in combination with recycled fibres. The use of straw in packaging means that farmers in markets where the pack exists could potentially create an additional revenue stream, and might not engage in environmentally harmful practices like burning the straw.
The Straw Pack was piloted, with 10,000 units, on World Recycling Day 2021 in Colombia and Argentina to establish if the packaging fits AB InBev’s specifications, maintains its integrity and meets safety standards, in line with the company’s ESG strategy. The team followed this initial trial with a pilot in Canada and France to understand consumer desirability in different markets.
Farida works closely with AB InBev’s Procurement team, Shane Henderson and David Kramer, to tap into the company’s supply chains to find appropriate materials for the Straw Pack project. She also works closely with fibre specialist, Facundo Beltramino, to ensure that new packaging does not result in reduced quality. As project lead, Farida is heavily involved in conversations within AB InBev on both the commercial and research aspects of the initiative. This technology won Packaging Europe’s 2022 Sustainability Award and Best in Class – Package Innovation Sustainable Design and two awards of distinction at the PAC Awards 2023.
“I was very inspired by the Summit. I learned a lot, and on the sustainability front, you realise that sometimes, maybe you have to change your thinking a bit to account for things that you never really thought about. I think the Summit consolidated what I was thinking on the importance of collaborating.”
Ghislaine Ada, Barry Callebaut
Ghislaine Ada, Barry Callebaut - Cameroon
Ghislaine Ada
Leadership Biographies
Ghislaine pursued a career in the agricultural sector because she wanted to have the greatest impact possible. In her previous role in Barry Callebaut as a Continuous Improvement Lead, she led projects across multiple countries related to energy savings and producing high-quality chocolate with minimal waste.
Ghislaine’s experience at the One Young World Summit Bogotá, 2017, reaffirmed her commitment to sustainability. She found the event deeply inspiring and took that energy to help her transition into a new role at Barry Callebaut. At the Summit, Ghislaine learned important lessons on community development which she has integrated into her role as Country Sustainability Manager. Ghislaine is now in charge of leading Barry Callebaut’s whole sustainability agenda in Côte d'Ivoire, the world’s largest cocoa producing country.
The strategy she has developed focuses on three main pillars. The first is to secure the prosperity of farmers through initiatives aimed at greater income diversification while ensuring that their farms continue to produce good quality cocoa. The second pillar relates to community development, which involves guaranteeing the human rights of communities involved in cocoa production and assessing the community risk level related to hazards, such as child labour or a lack of women’s empowerment. Ghislaine’s team put in place context-specific remedial actions to address a problem once it has been diagnosed.
The final pillar of Ghislaine’s work is environmental, and is to ensure that cocoa production is sustainable and does not come at the expense of Côte d'Ivoire’s natural habitats. To tackle this problem, Ghislaine’s team has developed a productivity package to discourage deforestation in the country. This involves selecting top-quality inputs and subsidising farmers. Ghislaine’s strategy also emphasises the use of non-chemical fertilisers and pruning, which can increase yields. Despite traditionally having a low adoption rate, farmers that take up this new practice through the Labour Group Project are likely to continue the practice past the first year and potentially increase their yields by as much as 40%.
These three pillars are guided by Ghislaine’s overarching objective of nurturing self-driven communities in the cocoa-producing regions of West Africa. Her sustainability strategy directly impacts the lives of 200,000 farmers in Côte d'Ivoire, their families and the wider communities around them.
“The Summit is a life-changing experience because, you know, sometimes we spend a lot of time just talking about all the negativity we have around us that we forget we are, we should be part of the solution, not part of the problem, and there is no small solution. There is no small contribution.”
NextGen Sustainability Council
NextGen Sustainability Council - Europe [main region]
Deepti Upreti, Martina Lösgen
Business for Social Good
Martina (Global Segment and Key Account Manager ACE & CV) is the acting Chair of the NextGen Sustainability Council at AkzoNobel. Deepti (Project Manager), currently part of this Council, is the representative of India. As part of this role, she leads one of the Council’s active projects. By building partnerships with other companies, particularly suppliers and customers of AkzoNobel, the team wants to help them set up their own NextGen Sustainability initiatives. Deepti and Martina were inspired by the One Young World Summits in London, 2019, and Manchester, 2022, respectively, and brought the motivation and learnings from these Summits back to AkzoNobel.
The NextGen Sustainability Council was founded by One Young World Ambassador Bob Dirks in 2020. It’s a network of enthusiastic sustainability ambassadors within AkzoNobel that facilitates knowledge and idea sharing. Members of the network proactively give their input and share concerns and ideas with AkzoNobel’s Global Sustainability Council. The Sustainability Council advises and updates the company’s Executive Committee on new developments, performance, and the integration of sustainability into their management processes.
The NextGen Sustainability Council offers members the opportunity to actively participate in sustainability projects, in alignment with AkzoNobel’s key sustainability ambitions that are focused on climate change, circularity, and health and well-being. This has resulted in stronger internal engagement in sustainability initiatives, as well as made grassroots knowledge available to senior leadership. The NextGen Sustainability Council’s 2022 projects touched upon topics such as circular economy, sustainability education, employee communications, and capability building, as well as building partnerships with other companies. The Council helps AkzoNobel’s sustainability team run initiatives and ensure that the company is reaching its sustainability goals while maintaining a degree of independence from the formal sustainability structures of the organisation. It also helps to make AkzoNobel’s sustainability messaging tangible to Deepti and Martina’s colleagues.
After supporting AkzoNobel’s external collaborative sustainability challenge where external partners were invited to work with the company in an effort to collectively reduce carbon footprint and tackle climate change - the NextGen Sustainability Council team realised that the structure of their initiative could be replicated across AkzoNobel’s suppliers and customers. Deepti has since led efforts to connect with other companies to build partnerships by using her platform from the Summit to pursue this objective. Deepti is also leading CSR initiatives in AkzoNobel’s GBS India office and says that her biggest learning from the Summit was that “You are never too young to lead and never too old to learn."
As Chair of the Council, Martina regularly engages with senior leadership at AkzoNobel to discuss the company’s sustainability strategy. This access has helped to guarantee that more junior voices within the organisation are considered when focusing on sustainability. The Council currently has 22 active members from across the world and different business units, with new ambassadors joining every year to help keep the Council’s ideas and messaging fresh.
“After One Young World, what has changed for me is my leadership. I’ve now the possibility to lead a team of more than 20 people. We are working on several topics to do small steps in improving our sustainability footprint within AkzoNobel. To work with a team of enthusiastic colleagues around the world gives me a lot of energy and helps me in my personal development.” - Martina Lösgen
Global Sustainability Network
Global Sustainability Network - United Kingdom
Nick Lawson, Neda Mirzaie, Joanna Jepson Reynolds, Matt Buckley
Business for Social Good
The Global Sustainability Network (GSN) at bp is an initiative developed and run by four One Young World Ambassadors: Nick, Neda, Jo, and Matt. Each had a personal interest in sustainability and were determined to help raise the profile of sustainability issues across bp.
They recognised the enthusiasm for the topic across the company, but saw individual employees weren’t always clear on how they could play a part. This presented an opportunity to bring employees together to harness this passion to deliver sustainable value, no matter their job title, seniority or geography.
The GSN launched on Earth Day in 2021. Its purpose: helping to build bp’s culture of sustainability, challenging traditional ways of working, and moving the dial on bp’s sustainability aims. This is done through events, training and creating opportunities to get involved in sustainability projects.
The GSN is now the largest employee-led group in the company, growing to over 6,000 members spread across 60 countries in just two years. This reach has given the GSN a fantastic platform to engage with leadership in bp – driving dialogue and helping to embed sustainability in how they work. This involves engagement across levels of the company including the opportunity to work with the bp CEO and leadership team.
The initiative has delivered in a big way – regularly hosting events for 1,000+ attendees, hosting workshops at the One Young World Summit in Manchester and leading 13 (so far) flow-to-work projects that directly connect employees to meaningful sustainability projects.
The GSN is still growing and will continue to connect employees with sustainability events, projects and opportunities. Ultimately, their aim is to play a key role in embedding sustainability in everything bp does and to help keep it front of mind in decision making.
“Since attending One Young World, we've all changed our careers and One Young World was a big enabler for this. We came back to bp with the drive to make a change, to be bolder in speaking to senior leaders and to challenge the ways we had always worked.”
Black Angel Group
Black Angel Group - United States
Khalida Abdulrahim
Business for Social Good
The Black Angel Group (BAG) is a collective of angel investors from Google and Alphabet that invests intellectual, social, and financial capital into early-stage companies around the world. In 2021, a group of Black Angel investors at Google launched the company’s first Angel Investing School to educate Black Google employees about angel investing and generational wealth-building as part of Black History Month. The initiative was well-received, and spurred the formation of BAG as an investor collective that has since grown rapidly. Though it is made up of investors from Google and Alphabet, BAG is not a Google or Alphabet sponsored organisation and exists independently.
When she attended the One Young World Summit in Munich, 2021, Khalida was working as a Responsibility Lead at YouTube, protecting users and advertisers from harmful online content and making YouTube a safer platform. One Young World struck Khalida as an opportunity to engage with people who work on the very issues she was trying to solve from YouTube’s digital safety perspective. At the Summit, she participated in sessions on disinformation and counterterrorism, which were directly related to her core job, and found the diverse stories and impact of her fellow delegates deeply inspiring.
To help young people get involved in the initiative, one of the BAG members initiated a fellowship programme designed to eliminate the typical entry barriers faced by young Black-identifying employees interested in angel investing. Khalida learned about this programme through the Black Googlers Network, an employee resource group for Black-identifying employees at Google.
The fellowship is designed to allow young people in the early stages of their careers to contribute their skills to BAG and sharpen their knowledge of angel investing without having to make the same financial commitments as full members. Khalida was selected as part of the inaugural class of fellows, and is now a Chief of Staff Fellow, collaborating closely with the collective’s leadership on developing BAG’s multi-year strategy. This involves maintaining and improving the collective's operational processes further.
BAG has been able to provide access to and education for an investment class that is often not engaged in by underrepresented minorities. In addition to being an angel investor collective, it also fosters a strong community spirit amongst its members.
“Being a part of The Black Angel Group fills me with the same sort of courage that I got from participating in One Young World, because I think inspiration can spur action. Seeing people like me, whether it is other young people at One Young World or Black leaders at BAG, making a difference in their communities gives me confidence to do the same.”
Green in Blue
After working on green education, particularly on reducing water consumption and the circular production of food, Loïc founded Green in Blue, using science for solving environmental issues and promoting circular food. The aim of this initiative is to make aquaponics an accessible alternative to sustainable farming. Green in Blue builds and provides consultancy on aquaponic production systems for clients in Spain based on its own aquaponic farm, Granja Blava.
Green in Blue inaugurated its first industrial production line in 2022, but Granja Blava has been active since 2019. The produce Loïc harvests there is distributed to customers throughout Barcelona. Loïc’s aquaponic farm system consumes ten times less water than conventional agricultural systems on the same surface. Green in Blue’s carbon footprint is minimal given that they only deliver locally, and they also offer workshops at the farm for people to learn more about alternative farming. Additionally, Loïc’s produce does not contain any added products, and no chemical fertilisers are used in the project’s harvesting process. Green in Blue aims to not only benefit the environment but also the health of consumers.
In the near future, Loïc has his eyes set on expanding the reach of Green in Blue internationally. His team has been selected by the European Union to be part of Horizon Europe programme, AWARE, where they will be supplying aquaponic systems to build an aquaponic farm in a wastewater treatment plant in Italy.
Escolha Do Povo
Escolha Do Povo - Mozambique
Manuel Rodrigues
Ambassador-led Initiative
In 2014, Manuel co-founded Escolha Da Povo (EDP), an agro-processing and poultry farm project, in the agricultural centre of Mozambique. The area in which EDP operates was traditionally dominated by subsistence farming, so the team took over and upgraded a facility that had previously been owned by the government to create a market for small-scale farmers. The project’s operations are now responsible for about $5M of maize and soya trade every year, contributing significantly to the economic development of local communities surrounding the facility. It has directly equipped 55,000 small-scale maize farmers, 14,000 small-scale farmers with seeds, as well as training and fertilisers for soya bean production.
Manuel and his team realised that only about 70% of the produce from maize cultivation is fit for human consumption, leading to large amounts of waste by-product with limited market value. Following feasibility studies, the team found that the best use for this by-product was turning it into chicken feed. EDP’s operations now include 300,000 chickens hatched per month, which are sold along with chicken feed on the market. The initiative also provides training programmes teaching small scale farmers how to grow chickens. Many of these 7,000 farmers have exceeded their own requirements and are not also selling to consumers.
Following this success, EDP is looking to expand its operations by opening three stores in Malawi in 2023, along with scaling its store space in Mozambique (currently there are 10 retail outlets in Mozambique). The initiative has also begun construction to expand its operations into fertilised egg production to reduce the cost of producing chicken, and is looking into pursuing a fish farming project at the Cahora Bassa Dam in Mozambique.
Upcycle Element
Upcycle Element - Brazil
Mayara Zetola, Livia Barbosa-Angelo, Lais Passoni
Business for Social Good
The Upcycle Element project was started by One Young World Ambassadors Livia, Lais, and Mayara in 2020 to develop a circular economy initiative using by-products and waste from BMW’s factory in southern Brazil. Livia, Lais, and Mayara each had an interest in sustainability before the project launched, but wanted to develop an initiative that would simultaneously tackle problems of waste management and community development.
The project works by first segregating the waste from the BMW plant and donating recyclable materials to local seamstresses from underprivileged communities in the area. These seamstresses are usually local women who do not have formal employment. The seamstresses then produce usable products from the waste materials, such as bags, which are then sold back to BMW employees. All the profits go directly to the seamstresses, and the materials are donated to them for free.
Although the project was active before they attended the One Young World Summit in Munich, 2021, Livia, Lais, and Mayara took inspiration from it to find new ways of keeping Upcycle Element alive. They have since managed to structure the project in such a way that it is self-sustainable, and this was the biggest learning they took from the Summit. The team uses internal marketing campaigns to boost the initiative’s visibility within BMW, particularly, but not exclusively, during certain holidays like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day. By doing this they have successfully maintained an internal market for the local seamstresses they work with.
The initiative received strong support from BMW’s central office in Brazil and allowed the seamstresses to use the BMW logo on their products. The team has also helped these seamstresses ensure their products were high-quality by introducing new processes to them. Some BMW departments have used these products as employee gifts, buying from the seamstresses instead of through other suppliers. So far, since 2020, the seamstresses have managed to produce and sell 6,693 products, which is equal to 919 kilograms of reused material. The Upcycle Element Project has so far worked directly with 23 seamstresses. Livia, Lais, and Mayara hope that the initiative will continue to scale its impact by upcycling more waste material and contributing to the financial empowerment of local women.
“We couldn’t attend the Munich Summit in person because of the pandemic so we joined online. But we stayed on the platform all day listening to the content. It was very, very nice, and it gave us a lot of ideas and a vision of what people are doing, which made us think about our space here. So it was very inspirational.” - Mayara Zetola
Greener Litigation Project
Greener Litigation Project - United Kingdom
Jenny Hindley
Business for Social Good
Jenny is an Associate at Mishcon de Reya in the commercial litigation team, and she also works closely with Mishcon Purpose, the firm’s ESG wing. She has spearheaded the Greener Litigation Project since it began, and partly as a result of her passion for sustainability in the legal profession she was invited to attend the One Young World Summit in Manchester, 2022.
Jenny found the Summit deeply inspiring, and noted that the Delegates shared clear common aims while nonetheless approaching issues in markedly different ways. The range, both of approach and scale, of the One Young World Community re-emphasised for her the role of community building in tackling sustainability challenges.
The Greener Litigation Project brings together industry-leading law firms, barristers’ chambers and other legal professionals to actively commit to reducing the environmental impact of a traditionally paper-based industry, focusing on the practice of litigation. The initiative was founded at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic after Jenny and her team recognised that lockdown measures had had an unintended positive effect on sustainable practices in the legal industry. At the heart of the Project is the Greener Litigation Pledge, which provides a way of embedding these effects into the practices of the legal sector. It is a commitment to adopt a set of practical changes that will make the day-to-day practice of litigation more sustainable by reducing its carbon footprint.
The Pledge has seen an explosion of interest since it was first launched, with over 100 organisations signing up, including some of the UK’s biggest law firms. In 2022, Greener Litigation also launched the Associate Member Pledge for corporates, brands and other organisations who participate in litigation but are not litigation businesses, and who are committed to achieving Net Zero, with Vodafone as the founding member.
Mishcon de Reya, through Jenny and her colleague Olivia Wybraniec, is the Secretariat of the Greener Litigation Steering Committee. Through her work with the Greener Litigation Project, Jenny has managed to bring a framework for sustainability to the forefront of legal industry’s litigation practices.
The Pledge itself is standardised for all signatories and includes steps to reduce the environmental impact of litigation disputes, such as emphasising the reduced carbon footprint of electronic communication compared to paper. The framework also aims to reduce the travel footprint of litigation cases by using technology to discourage the current industry standard practice of flying individuals to the UK to give evidence. Whilst the Pledge is an entry-level commitment designed to facilitate gradual changes in legal practice, Jenny and her colleagues are keen to expand the Greener Litigation Project further by advocating that the legal system itself adopt procedural changes to further its commitment to sustainability.
“The Summit was an eye-opener to other sectors and the role that law can play in driving positive change. But it is one piece of the puzzle and there are lots of other pieces. It was really insightful to see some of the very practical ways that other Ambassadors are addressing the same challenge.”
Mada Agribiz
Mada Agribiz - Madagascar
Tsiry Randrianavelo
Ambassador-led Initiative
10
SROI
Tsiry created Mada Agribiz, in 2019, as a social business with the aim of providing a sustainable solution for waste management as well as promoting business and economic opportunities for the vulnerable population in Madagascar. The agricultural and agro-processing sectors of Madagascar support 75% of its population, and the poverty rate is also at 75% [1]. Tsiry’s project targets farmers, selling them earthworms, compost and fertilisers, as well as providing technical assistance. In addition, they generate local jobs by contracting non-employed young people to act as partners in their communities and produce earthworm fertilisers for sale.
Tsiry attended the One Young World Summit in Munich, 2021. The most valuable aspect of interacting with fellow Ambassadors was the connections made during the Summit, especially those that are in Madagascar that have joined his Move Up Madagascar initiative as volunteers. Following the Summit, he organised a series of webinars on different topics.
Mada Agribiz’s impact comes in different forms. In urban areas, they encourage households to limit their waste and limit the amount of waste discarded into rivers. Their waste management and collection activities are done in partnership with the municipality of Antananarivo, and Mada Agribiz uses that waste to produce fertilisers. For those interested in urban agriculture and for farmers, they provide biological fertilisers at an accessible price. These types of fertilisers can increase yields by 200%. Mada Agribiz has sold more than 20 tonnes of fertilisers to around 1,045 clients, with 60% located in rural areas.
“Being able to participate in the One Young World Summit in Munich, 2021, was a testimony of the power of young people for me.”
How to use to the SDG Tracker
Search for projects by the following case study categories:
- Ambassador-led Initiatives: qualitative and quantitative analysis of the social impact of projects which are led by young leaders in the Community.
- Business for Social Good: written case studies for initiatives ran by corporate partner organisations, led by young Ambassadors/employees.
- Leadership Stories: short biographies of Ambassadors who are growing into influential leaders for social good in some of the world’s largest companies.
- Covid Young Leaders Fund: detailed case studies of grant recipients from One Young World's 2020 funding opportunity for projects tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Lead2030: detailed case studies of the Lead2030 award winners and how their projects have generated impact from participating in the programme.