$ 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 43 Ambassador-led initiatives addressing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2024/25
SDG Impact Tracker
Interested in supporting impactful initiatives led by young leaders? Search this database of over 430 projects from the One Young World Community to find out more.
Megazul Colombia
Megazul Colombia - Colombia
Carolina Mesa Trujillo
Ambassador-led Initiative
3
SROI
Carolina is the Founder of Megazul Colombia, a youth-led initiative co-creating environmental experiences and community-based adventures. Carolina is passionate about protecting Colombia’s biodiversity, and her initiative offers education and local sustainable development to safeguard the country’s natural environment. Megazul Colombia is active in the Pacific, Caribbean and Andean regions of Colombia, working in 29 coastal and mountainous communities. The initiative offers conservation experiences and outings, workshops, fauna monitoring, composting, and knowledge-sharing experiences between visitors and local community experts through its eco-tourism routes.
Carolina attended the One Young World Summit in Manchester, 2022. She spoke on a panel with Former First Lady of Colombia, María Juliana Ruiz, about her work.
Megazul Colombia has restored 100 square metres of coral reefs with 1,000 coral fragments and reintroduced five species to this ecosystem, educating 146 children on the importance of conservation. It has impacted 1,773 adults and children through its different environmental and scientific education initiatives. The organisation, in collaboration with Cusba Travel, won an award from the Mayor of Santa Marta for its ecotourism route ‘Del Mar a la Sierra’. This route has generated employment opportunities for 10 people while Megazul has provided capacity-building training and environmental education to four communities in Santa Marta. The organisation has planted 360 local native trees and hosted four days of gardening events, while its composting workshops have reached more than 750 people.
“One Young World always reminds me that we ARE. My leadership represents the voice of the ecosystems, communities and those working to create a change for Colombia’s megadiversity. It has inspired me, it is a big challenge to keep working with the same purpose at full speed and passion, building up the country from an environmental edu-communication and scientific lens.”
Azura Indonesia
Nadea is the visionary Co-Founder of Azura Indonesia. Armed with her expertise as an electrical engineer, she’s revolutionising the lives of coastal communities in Indonesia. Her brainchild, the MantaOne marine propulsion engine, is a cutting edge technological development that offers a beacon of hope for low-income fishermen in Bali. MantaOne isn’t your run-of-the-mill engine; it’s a sustainable game changer. Powered by a cutting-edge lithium-ion battery pack, it not only slashes costs for fishermen but also champions environmental conservation, ensuring that every fishing trip is a step towards a greener future. With MantaOne, Nadea is providing a pathway to economic empowerment and environmental stewardship.
Nadea’s journey took a significant leap forward at the One Young World Summit in Manchester, 2022. As a Delegate Speaker for the Ocean plenary challenge, she captivated audiences with her vision of a sustainable ocean economy. Her global platform not only elevated her work but also ignited a wave of inspiration back home in Indonesia.
Today, Azura Indonesia’s MantaOne units are making waves in South Bali, reducing carbon emissions and economic costs with every trip. With 18 units already in operation, Nadea’s impact is tangible, with each engine symbolising a step towards a cleaner, more
prosperous future for Bali’s fishermen. But Nadea’s ambitions don’t end here. She plans to scale her initiative, ensuring that every fishing community in Indonesia has access to the transformative power of MantaOne. Nadea is not just building engines, but a legacy of sustainability and empowerment for generations to come.
“After the Summit I finally got the spotlight within my country. Before, no one really knew what the solution was. So the appreciation and the recognition came from outside Indonesia and after One Young World, a lot of national media finally became aware that there is this solution coming from Indonesia. So that's had quite a big impact for me.”
Saving the Amazon
Saving the Amazon - Colombia
Daniel Gutiérrez Patiño
Ambassador-led Initiative
24
SROI
Daniel is the Founder and CEO of Saving the Amazon, a non-profit organisation empowering Indigenous communities in Colombia and planting trees to combat deforestation in the country’s Amazon region. Daniel and his team acknowledge that Indigenous communities are the guardians of the Amazon, and the organisation partners with them to preserve and enhance the rainforest. The Indigenous communities that Saving the Amazon works with retain complete ownership of planted trees and have input on which trees are planted. Saving the Amazon uses geospatial technology to determine individual tree location for greater accountability, and creates a more meaningful experience for donors by sharing the story of the Indigenous people who plant the trees.
Daniel attended the One Young World Summit in Manchester, 2022. He was a Delegate Speaker for the Ethical Leadership plenary challenge. At the Summit, he met the former First Lady of Colombia, María Juliana Ruiz, and post-Summit was invited by her and former President Iván Duque to an event focused on the Amazon region.
Saving the Amazon has planted over 642,000 trees, which are predicted to sequester 696,000 tonnes of CO2 over the next thirty years. The benefits for Indigenous communities go beyond the environmental impact of restoration; 740 Indigenous community members are employed to support tree planting efforts, and a significant percentage of the money raised by the project goes directly towards community-focused projects. Saving the Amazon works particularly closely with Indigenous women, who comprise a majority of its tree planters. Saving the Amazon is able to offer in-kind support to the Indigenous people it works with if they prefer it, providing electrical and domestic products at a discounted price to community members.
“One Young World made the click for me of the importance of building multilevel governance communities. Only by uniting a common vision of our future we may have a regenerative one.”
EcoCiclo
Hellen co-founded EcoCiclo, a social business working to end menstrual poverty and increase the use of sustainable menstrual hygiene products in Brazil. EcoCiclo provides education on menstrual health, leadership, career development, and entrepreneurship with a focus on income generation for women. The organisation trains its paid fellows to become menstrual health educators after completing their training. It also supports women in accessing accelerators, incubators, and other business opportunities, while helping to secure speaking opportunities for women to promote their work, showcase and sell their sustainable products. It does this by finding the clients and selling on behalf of the women, thereby helping to scale their production and generate more revenue for them. Hellen, alongside her EcoCiclo co-founders, also does advocacy work on menstrual health poverty internationally.
Hellen attended the One Young World Summit in Manchester, 2022. She found it to be a life-changing experience, meeting Black women in leadership positions like One Young World Counsellor Ilia Calderón. Hellen was interviewed by GLAMOUR Magazine at COP27, alongside her fellow Ambassadors, on the lack of representation of women in climate spaces.
EcoCiclo has empowered 30 women with menstrual health training by the Fellowship Period Ambassadors. These women become EcoCiclo Alumni Ambassadors and often work with the organisation on its menstrual health education programming, expanding its reach into their own communities and directly impacting 1,129 people with menstrual training to democratise menstrual education. The organisation has created 1,000 sustainable pads so far and provided employment opportunities to 10 women as a result. The pads are reported to emit 40% less carbon during production than common sanitary pads. The organisation has established two pad banks and supported 5,310 women with obtaining career and entrepreneurship scholarships.
“I loved being at the Summit, mostly because I was an Ilia Calderón Scholar. I cried meeting her because seeing a Black woman in that position, and who gave me the opportunity to travel, was a life changing experience for me.”
Future Females
Lauren co-founded Future Females in 2017 to create a movement and community that supports female entrepreneurs in 57 cities with access to best practice training and entrepreneurship programmes. The movement has trained 160 ambassadors to run events and deliver its programmes in their respective local communities. Its programmes focus on business development, access to market, and access to funding. Future Females also provides coaching and mentoring, in small group settings or one-on-one, and helps female entrepreneurs access funding opportunities to bridge the capital investment gender gap.
Lauren attended the One Young World Summit in Manchester, 2022, virtually. Her exposure to other leaders and entrepreneurs there inspired her to think bigger about what is possible in her space and drive forward her work with Future Females.
The Future Females community consists of 160,000 female entrepreneurs, who have joined by participating in online events, chapter events, or programmes. The movement’s Business School is a three month-long accelerator programme that has supported 3,086 entrepreneurs in total. The accelerator has also developed into sector-specific editions, focusing on industries lacking a strong female presence. Future Females’ Access to Funding programme provides entrepreneurs with financial literacy, financial readiness training, and a funding matchmaker. It connected 100 entrepreneurs with 15 founders during the last round of the programme, establishing partnerships based on project development stages and securing $335,000 in funding. Additionally, the movement has developed Pave, a tech platform for women to access Future Females’ roadmap methodology for growing a digital business, with a business capability assessment and a personalised content journey.
“Attending a Summit like One Young World that brings together people from markets that are world-leading showed me what's possible. So I think the main thing that I got out of it was the exposure to people thinking bigger.”
Citizen's Gavel
Nelson founded Citizen’s Gavel, a non-profit organisation expediting access to justice delivery in Nigeria through the use of digital technology. Citizen’s Gavel connects victims with local volunteer lawyers for pro-bono legal support in an accessible and affordable way. Its work expands beyond solving cases for victims; Nelson and his team are also active advocates for legislative changes and policy reforms in Nigeria’s criminal justice system. Nelson was a co-lead and co-strategist of the #ENDSARS movement against police brutality, securing a presidential directive to overhaul the Special Anti-Robbery Squad.
Nelson attended the One Young World Summits in London, 2019 and Manchester, 2022. He was a Delegate Speaker in London - the first time he had a global spotlight on his work - and a panel speaker at Manchester, which helped him build a network of support for the expansion of Citizen’s Gavel into the UK. As a Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs Scholar, Nelson connected with the Dutch Embassy and has received support from them as he continues to scale Citizen’s Gavel.
The organisation’s network of lawyers has 260 volunteers across Nigeria. Citizen’s Gavel has facilitated the solving of 5,000 cases, including 400 involving gender-based violence. It also provides legal education, onsite sensitisation, and on-the-spot legal advice across rural areas. Citizen’s Gavel has conducted training sessions for Nigeria’s National Judicial Council, for which it developed a case management software to support judicial efficiency, and the Ministry of Justice. As part of its UK expansion, it aims to provide online legal education for migrants on British common law.
“I was supported to attend One Young World by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it actually spotlighted my work to the Netherlands Embassy as well. A lot of support and opportunities have been shared with me through the Netherlands Embassy. This wouldn't have happened without One Young World.”
Tammùkke Feminists
Beginning as an advocacy passion project aimed at sharing accessible information on women’s issues, Akola founded Tamùkke Feminists in 2017. Tamùkke Feminists has now grown into a public education group focusing on sexual reproductive health rights, abortion rights, LBTQ rights, and mental health in the Caribbean region through an intersectional feminist perspective. Tamùkke Feminists’ approach is collaboratively designed with the organisation’s beneficiaries to ensure that its proposed solutions are directly targeting the issues women in Guyana are most affected by.
Akola attended the One Young World Summit in Manchester, 2022. She was a Delegate Speaker on the Gender Equality plenary challenge, where she spoke about using lived experiences to fight for gender equality. Akola believes that attending the Summit helped increase the visibility of her work and Tamùkke Feminists.
Tamùkke Feminists has supported 71 women with four sessions of therapy services as part of its Mind Fund programme, challenging the stigma around mental illness in Guyana and providing access to mental health care. Its Work Ready programme has provided 50 women with job preparedness training, career mentoring, and labour rights. The organisation has also reached 90 women through its clothing drives in two regions in Guyana. Tamùkke Feminists has contributed towards enhanced public education on intersectional feminist issues. It also co-created the iMatter app with UNFPA Guyana, providing survivors of violence with information on how to access relevant services in their regions.
“Being a One Young World Ambassador has connected me with incredible change leaders
from across the world who are involved in important development work. Being connected to a community of individuals who are really making progress on the SDGs has been an inspiring experience.”
Politize!
Gabriel is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Politize! - Civic Education Institute, a Brazilian civil society organisation that produces free and unbiased content and campaigns of civic education on the internet, trains civic leaders capable of solving public problems, and trains teachers to educate young people in the process to become engaged citizens at schools. Politize!'s ultimate goal is to improve political culture and participation, counter misinformation and authoritarianism, while strengthening democracy. Originally an online platform in 2015, the organisation initially established its audience with articles, infographics, videos, podcasts, e-books, and online courses.
Gabriel attended the One Young World Summit in Manchester, 2022. He was inspired by his fellow Delegates and their work, and remains an active member of the Latin America One Young World Community.
From 2018 on, new areas were created, like the leadership skills development programme for young people, the Ambassadors Politize!, and the School of Active Citizenship!, aiming to train teachers that can reach students at schools with civic education. The organisation has also implemented significant awareness campaigns. Since 2015, Politize!'s track record has expressive numbers: 3,700 pieces of content produced, 97 million users have accessed the website at least once, 2,941 civic leaders, 13,918 teachers through whom 158,091 students have been trained, 9,781 civic education workshops carried out by volunteers reaching 179,754 people, 663 Public Policy Canvas created proposing concrete solutions to public problems, and four awareness campaigns released.
“I had heard about One Young World before, but it wasn’t until I attended the Summit that I truly understood the power of the Community. My most remarkable memory is the amount of really inspiring people that were younger than me and doing incredible stuff.”
THE LEADS ASIA
THE LEADS ASIA - Japan
Ayano Sasaki
Ambassador-led Initiative
9
SROI
Ayano is the Co-Founder of THE LEADS ASIA, a non-governmental organisation born during the COVID-19 pandemic as a space for young Asian people to have constructive conversations about the future of their region. THE LEADS ASIA aims to address how historical issues can impact the current and future relationships between countries in the region and their overall development. The initiative organises and hosts events where young people can meet, learn and discuss current problems and solutions to address the societal and cross-cultural issues which affect them.
Ayano attended the One Young World Summit in London, 2019, and she credits this experience with giving her the push she needed to take action for the future. She remains an active member of the One Young World Japan Community, organising events and participating in opportunities such as the One Young World Shine a Light Panel Series.
THE LEADS ASIA’s events have been attended by 500 people so far. Its first in-person event, hosted in collaboration with Waseda University and the Lee Heui Keon Korea-Japan Exchange Foundation, discussed the Japan-South Korea relationship from different perspectives. It also hosted an event on the Pacific War, its aftermath, and how it
continues to affect relations in the region. THE LEADS ASIA has also addressed discrimination in Japanese society through its events. The organisation has published articles that have reached around 1,000 people and which are translated into four languages. THE LEADS ASIA is currently working with professors from Waseda University and Chuo University on a student textbook detailing the relationship between Japan and South Korea.
“One Young World has had a huge impact on my leadership and on the work I do at THE LEADS ASIA. Attending the Summit, I realised what I’m really passionate about and it inspired me to take action for the future.”
Mini Moon Project
Mini Moon Project - Republic of Korea
Grace Eunbin Kim
Ambassador-led Initiative
10
SROI
Grace is the Founder of the Mini Moon Project, a non-profit organisation focused on eradicating period poverty through advocacy, education, and the donation of menstrual kits to women and girls in underserved communities, orphanages, youth care centres, tribal communities, and shelters for domestic abuse survivors. In 2021, period poverty affected 26.31% of people who menstruate across the world; this number is likely to have grown in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic [1]. Grace was motivated to begin the Mini Moon Project after noticing the social issues surrounding menstrual health in marginalised communities in South Korea, and the intersections between this issue and gender equality, education, and the environment. The menstrual cups that the Mini Moon Project distributes can last up to 15 years, and are an environmentally friendly alternative to non-reusable sanitary pads.
Grace attended the One Young World Summit in Munich, 2021. She learned valuable lessons on leadership, growing as a leader, running her organisation more efficiently, and expanding the work that she is doing with the Mini Moon Project.
The Mini Moon Project has donated 3,000 menstrual kits since its founding in 2019, donating 600 menstrual cups in 2023 alone. The kits include reusable menstrual cups, cleaning products, and a box for storage to guarantee good hygiene for users. Additionally, the Mini Moon Project has distributed over 30,000 educational materials in seven countries, including comic books, video instructions on the use of the menstrual kits, and discussions to break the menstrual taboo. The Mini Moon Project also conducted a menstrual health training workshop with representatives from the World Health Organisation, reaching 100 students. Grace hopes to expand the impact of the Mini Moon Project by engaging with politicians and authorities to address period poverty in public spaces and support women’s empowerment.
“Participating in the One Young World Summit afforded me invaluable opportunities to
engage in virtual sessions focused on leadership development. These sessions not only
provided valuable insights but also equipped me with practical advice for expanding my
organisation and enhancing my networking capabilities.”
Absa Women Network Forum
Absa Women Network Forum - Uganda
Pamela Turyatunga
Business for Social Good
Pamela is the Sustainability Manager, Absa Bank Uganda and has worked with the bank since 2012. In reaction to a 17% spike in teenage pregnancy during the COVID-19 pandemic in Uganda, she published her book, Alyvea, to encourage better decision-making amongst young people. As a result, Pamela was selected and attended the One Young World Summit Manchester, 2022, as a representative from Absa Group. She found the Summit to be a transformational event, connecting with like-minded peers and discussing the commonalities of their experiences in the sustainability sector.
“Being a One Young World Ambassador has created opportunities for me. I've been able to feature in some of the national papers, such as being profiled as one of the top 40 in the country who are doing good. When we came for the Summit and I posted one of the main pages about the book I had published, three of the people from the Summit reached out to me and they wanted to be a part of the book I published on supporting teen mothers. So they were able to financially support me to print out more copies of the book.”
Pamela is actively involved in the Absa Women Network Forum (WNF). She developed a proposal, identified three homes in Uganda specialising in care for teen mothers and providing pregnancy support and vocational training. The WNF reviewed the particular needs of each home and provided specific material support to assist them. This involved setting up vegetable gardens and orchards to ensure the teen mothers have a sustainable source of food and provided dry food and clothes for the children. Through their ‘Support a Teen Mother help raise the future generation’ campaign, WNF rallied the support of Absa Uganda colleagues to provide material assistance and skills training to underprivileged teen mothers.
The team at WNF also donated 25 repurposed laptops with access to the Absa ReadytoWork platform. This platform teaches users financial, people, entrepreneurial, and work skills, with a certificate of completion for each module. In the third home, located in the western part of the country, WNF provided diapers and baby bedsheets. In total, over 500 teen mothers have been supported through Pamela’s and WNF’s activities.
Pamela was part of Absa Uganda’s inaugural Absa KH3_7 Hills run in 2023 where all proceeds went towards keeping 2,700 girls in school, through paying of school fees, support in Menstrual Health Hygiene and vocational training. Pamela engaged a third-party company to install a sustainable drinking water system at the TERREWODE Women’s hospital for women suffering from obstetric fistula, thus meeting the major need of the hospital.
Pamela’s daily role at Absa is to ensure that the company continues to act as a positive force for good in communities, in line with its ESG pillars. This involves looking at the sustainability practices of all sectors and ensuring that the company’s activities meet its internal standards for energy reduction, carbon emission reduction, conservation and environmental risk. And working closely with HR to ensure that women are represented in the company’s senior levels.
Young Bayer/MERGE
Young Bayer/MERGE - The Netherlands
Loek Hageman
Business for Social Good
In 2018, Loek founded Jong Bayer in the Netherlands as a way of elevating the voices of young Bayer employees. Upon relocating to Berlin, Loek, along with his colleagues Jannis Busch, Josepha Niebelschuetz, and Sabrina Steinert, developed Young Bayer to facilitate meaningful cross-team connections within his organisation for current and future talent, to drive intrapreneurial initiatives at Bayer. Early in his career, Loek was actively engaged in networking events for young professionals outside of his company which inspired him to start his own project within Bayer. He attended both One Young World Summits in Manchester, 2022, and Belfast, 2023. He found the Summits to be eye-opening experiences, providing him with the motivation to be mindful of his own privilege and reinforcing his belief in the power of community.
“Meeting so many cool and inspiring people at the Summit makes me realise there's so much more we can do to make the world a better place. It's up to all of us to now start driving change.”
Young Bayer developed as a means of establishing generational diversity and fostering conversations, knowledge-sharing, and relationships between junior and senior colleagues at the company. It focused on growing the network, skills, and voice of this demographic within the company. Beginning as a grassroots movement, Young Bayer has been endorsed at senior levels within the company and has accumulated over 1,500 members since its founding. The movement maintains a non-hierarchical structure, allowing members to work horizontally across multiple focus areas, across professional expertise and the company’s managerial system. This circular approach allows members to gravitate towards their areas of interest, whether that is networking, personal development, or sustainability. Young Bayer operates globally, while maintaining strong local communities and initiatives such as Young Advisory Boards.
The initiative has since gone global within Bayer, and with this increasing presence has come a shift in focus. Young Bayer, alongside 4 other communities, has transitioned into the Multigenerational Employee Resource Group Exchange (MERGE). MERGE remains an umbrella movement across a diverse range of topics, all geared towards the vision: Bayer leverages the full potential of every generation. Some focus areas include reverse mentoring, upskilling the organisation, and organising the annual One Young World Delegation. This broad focus allows members to gain experience in areas that may have been otherwise difficult for them to access, as well as the chance to develop as more well-rounded leaders. The movement is impacting Bayer on multiple levels and continues to foster a culture of inclusivity across the entire organisation.
Aside from his work with MERGE, Loek also leads Bayer’s early career development programmes and is responsible for building an early career strategy for the company. Additionally he focused on increasing peer-to-peer accountability through feedback, which has grown increasingly important due to Bayer’s transition towards Dynamic Shared Ownership.
Green Teams Network
Green Teams Network - USA 1 [coordinating region]
Emma Howe
Business for Social Good
Emma’s passion for creating positive change on a large scale led her to join Deloitte. Upon joining, she founded Deloitte’s first US Green Team as a way for employees of all backgrounds to get involved in sustainability efforts at the firm. This included making Deloitte Boston a more environmentally sustainable workplace by removing single-use plastic water bottles from the office. The initiative found support in Deloitte’s Global Chief Sustainability Officer, Kathryn Alsegaf, who connected the Boston Green Team with Deloitte employees in other cities. The company now has 35 Green Teams across the USA, with over 1,000 members in total, focused on driving sustainable behavioural adoption, operational change, and volunteering with environmental non-profits.
Emma virtually attended the One Young World Summit in Munich, 2021. This was one of the first times she heard discussions that centred climate change from intersectional perspectives, which aligned with her own work on sustainability. Before the Summit, Emma transitioned into a role on Deloitte’s US internal sustainability and climate change team, leading the US firm’s Empower Individuals and Embed Sustainability pillars of the company’s WorldClimate strategy. These pillars focus on sustainable behaviour adoption, as well as embedding sustainability within the company, in part through the Green Teams, encouraging Deloitte employees to take actions, such as leading Zero Waste events and volunteering with local environmental non-profits. In this role, Emma is responsible for leading the decentralised Green Team network, developing the US firm’s Zero Waste operations and events strategy, and spearheading flagship employee engagement campaigns like Deloitte’s annual Earth Month celebration.
Under Emma’s leadership, the Green Teams organise their initiatives around encouraging sustainable behaviour adoption, embedding sustainability into local office operations, and volunteering with local environmental non-profits, offering Deloitte employees a diverse range of guidance and instruction on sustainability. In line with this structure, many Green Teams host a monthly “Do It Yourself” series on using household items to create environmentally friendly alternatives to consumer goods. Several Green Teams have also implemented sustainability measures within Deloitte’s operations, working with local operation's teams to transition the company’s pantry supplies towards reusable materials. Green Teams are also involved in developing campaign messaging for sustainability-related events like Earth Month. In Earth Month 2023 alone, Green Teams across Deloitte held more than 85 events, from educational webinars to park cleanups, and inspired 3,000 of their colleagues to participate in the Earth Month Ecochallenge and adopt sustainable lifestyle practices. The network is increasingly integrated into Deloitte’s overall sustainability strategy.
Emma’s role in Deloitte’s Zero Waste operations and events strategy has successfully diverted more than 68,000 pounds of waste from two major conferences through composting, recycling, and donations. She also leads the Zero Waste strategy for Impact Day, the company’s national day of volunteering, mobilising 30,000 Deloitte employees for volunteering services. During Impact Day 2023, Deloitte’s Zero Waste strategy was implemented at 139 Impact Day project sites, a nearly 10x increase from 2022. The initiative successfully diverted 89% of non-hazardous waste across these sites.
"At the Summit, I was thrilled to find climate change discussed as an intersectional issue, linking it with equity and health. It was refreshing to see others echo the perspective I've been advocating for at our firm."
Domestic Abuse Toolkit Initiative
Domestic Abuse Toolkit Initiative - United Kingdom
Hemant Chudasama, Danaé Guiennot
Business for Social Good
Hemant has always been active in social impact spaces within and outside of PwC, including social mobility, mental health, and gender equality. He has also been active in the company’s Diversity Mentoring Scheme for the past five years. Through this initiative, students from underrepresented backgrounds receive training on vocational skills.
Hemant attended the One Young World Summit in Manchester, 2022. He found it to be deeply inspirational and has subsequently co-led PwC’s internal One Young World network with other ambassadors. Hemant has carried the connections he made at the Summit back to PwC, inviting One Young World Ambassadors into corporate spaces to aid mentees of the Diversity Mentoring Scheme programme at a careers day event. These Ambassadors delivered workshops and mock assessment centre sessions.
Hemant alongside colleagues such as Danaé Guiennot, a fellow Ambassador at PwC, became part of a working group looking at enhancements to our support arrangements for those experiencing domestic abuse. The group led by the firm’s employee relations, policy and advice team were able to gain board level approval and support for enhancements to the firm’s existing Domestic Abuse support. PwC provides employees experiencing domestic abuse with up to 10 days special paid leave, two nights of free emergency accommodation for them and their children to escape an abusive situation (with additional discretion for the business to extend this). This system can also be anonymised to ensure the privacy of victims and the launch has been extremely well-received.
Hemant was also part of the team that introduced biodegradable alternatives to plastic chewing gum in 14 PwC offices in the UK as part of a drive towards greater sustainability within the company. He was responsible for establishing partnerships with ESG organisations that champion the voices of young people working in the climate space, and platforming them at important climate events like COP28 to ensure their representation. He also attended the firm’s Mental Health First Aid course and shared his positive experience with his colleagues, advocating for more people, at all levels, to complete the training. Hemant led the internal One Young World network at PwC UK for a year after the Manchester Summit, including the Champions Network through which he and his team helped other motivated colleagues achieve their initiatives within the company.
“I've been in the One Young World network at PwC since joining so felt incredibly lucky to have had the experience of going to a Summit and hearing all the staggering stories; the event surpassed all expectations. You can get emotional and motivated after meeting inspirational people, some of whom I'm lucky to call friends today. I‘ve even worked with some on delivering impactful projects inside and outside of work and hope this continues. I encourage anyone reading this to get involved dedicating time to something beyond yourself. It doesn’t matter how much we each move the needle, as long as we move it.”
Sustainable Battery Development
Sustainable Battery Development - China
Layla Ge
Business for Social Good
Layla began her career at BMW in the field of electromobility, integrating sustainability into BMW’s battery development process alongside performance and safety. She now specialises in negotiating and clarifying the sustainability requirements of BMW battery cells with the company’s battery suppliers.
This involves going through all the materials used in a battery to determine how much recycled material can be realised. It also involves assessing all the processes for battery production to achieve renewable energy implementation. Layla discusses these targets with the suppliers throughout the development process, including upstream and recycling partners. She also helps suppliers to establish their own sustainability protocols, advocating for more comprehensive data collection on emissions.
Once batteries are in production, audits are conducted to ensure that they fulfil sustainability targets. Layla and her team also identify new technologies and processes that can make the battery production process more energy efficient and improve battery life cycles. The overall objective is to establish a more sustainable battery for e-mobility at BMW.
Layla attended the One Young World Summit in Belfast, 2023. The BMW Delegation participated in pre-Summit workshops to connect with each other and to prepare for the event. Layla found the Summit itself to be deeply inspiring, both in terms of learning more about sustainability initiatives and technologies outside of BMW but also across other key topics like mental health and education. Her professional role at BMW is the development of the company’s next generation of electric vehicles. The BMW Group is committed to the Paris Climate Agreement and is consistently implementing the transformation towards all-electric, connected mobility.
“For my everyday work at BMW, climate change, energy and battery development are the core topics. At the Summit, it was really inspiring to get to know so many other important topics, like mental health, education and many more.”
Layla worked in BMW’s Munich factory before relocating to China in 2023 to focus on the company’s sustainable battery supply chain. China is the world’s major producer of batteries by volume, with vast potential for sustainable impact and increasing capacity for battery recycling.
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 Biographies: short biographies of Ambassadors who are growing into influential leaders for social good in some of the world’s largest companies, organisations, and in government.
- One Young World Funded Projects: detailed case studies of grant recipients from One Young World's funding opportunities, including Lead2030, Rebuilding Communities, and the COVID Young Leaders Fund.