Winners by region

We are building a global network of musicians and youth volunteers to deliver environmental education through the catalytic power of music. The neuroscience is clear: music activates more regions of the brain than even language does. This power can and must be used for the good of the earth and its people, especially in times of great division like those we are experiencing. We foster a global community in which the memorable, emotional, and unifying power of music contributes to the balance between humankind, nature, and society. We produce media, develop classroom resources, and lead live events and workshops. Our content reaches millions over radio, TV, online and also face-to-face, in nationally relevant genres and languages. Our music is composed to deliver a message while holding attention and inspiring an emotional response, without only preaching to the choir. To sustain this global movement at the national level, we identify talented youth leaders and empower them with structures, resources, and strategies to lead eco-musical revolutions. They maintain relationships with artists and broadcasters, offer solar-powered video screenings and activations like tree planting and waste clean-ups, produce local songs and videos.

The Circular Economy Club is the non-profit international network of over 3,500 circular economy professionals and organizations from over 100 countries. Our vision is to live in an era where all cities function through a circular model, setting the end of an age of waste. The Club’s mission is to bring the circular economy to cities from Accra to Delhi, Quito to Amsterdam - by building strong local networks to design and implement circular local strategies, embed the circular economy in the education system and help circular solutions scale. The Club is managed voluntarily by a team of 37 worldwide volunteers and supported by 50 mentor, who have given 130 hours of free mentoring to start-ups and students, and by 200 organizers who voluntarily bring people together to design and implement local circular economy strategies in their cities. The circular economy is an alternative to the linear economy, where all products and services are designed with the intention to avoid waste, and used materials flow back into the system by being resold, shared, refurbished or recycled. When Organizers sign up to the program, they receive toolkits and communications materials, exchange knowledge with the rest of organizers globally, and they are able to coordinate their local communities.

The extraction and consumption of fossil carbon to run our daily lives accounts for over 6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year, driving climate change. By not viewing fossil fuels and feedstocks through a “circular economy” lens, companies “throw away” approximately US$50 billion each year in potential profit from what could be made with waste carbon dioxide such as methanol. HI-Light is a solar-thermal chemical reactor technology for converting carbon dioxide into fuels like syngas or methanol. The technology seeks to achieve a kind of artificial photosynthesis inside a factory or a power plant – combining sunlight, carbon dioxide and chemicals to photo-catalytically produce renewable fuel. Our technique makes carbon dioxide capture and conversion more economical. The current conversion of carbon dioxide into useful chemicals by weight is a very small percent of the close to two billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted by power plants in the United States alone. HI-Light’s “reverse combustion” technology converts carbon dioxide into high-value hydrocarbons, increasing its value as a commodity. The unique design feature of our reactor is the optimized light delivery coupled with opto-thermal heating to reach elevated temperatures where reaction rates are higher.

Lebanon is in the midst of an acute ongoing environmental crisis. Yet dangerous chemicals and hazardous substances contained in house-care products, dish and laundry soaps, multi-purpose cleaners, shampoo, deodorant, face-wash, makeup remover, face and hand creams - are not being carefully disposed of, due to lack of proper wastewater treatment. SAVVY ELEMENT aims to primarily design safe and green chemical solutions while reducing the use of harsh substances that contribute to greenhouse emissions and hazardous waste. Our active ingredients and materials are native to their country of origin, extracted and produced using eco-friendly, low-energy and low-water intensive techniques. Our model supports local farmers and fair-trade businesses, ultimately creating jobs. Our products are hazard free, limiting the instances of skin allergies and respiratory problems and lastly, we create workshops and open events to raise awareness about sustainability and safe consumption of eco-friendly cosmetics, cleaning agents and basic aid products including preventative immunity-boosters, and pain relievers. Today, SAVVY ELEMENT’s products are being sold at a weekly eco-market and we have received requests from eco- stores to sell our products. 

FabricAID reuses and recycles unwanted clothes. Clothes are graded, sorted into over 46 categories, cleaned and redistributed to disadvantaged communities at between US$0.3 – US$2 per item. Omar has succeeded in growing FabricAID from an idea into a full-blown company with more than 120 employees and several millions in turn over within 5 years.

Living on the peninsula of Qatar, the effect of plastic on marine life is magnified. Our single-use plastic is a serial killer for marine life, as it takes thousands of years to disintegrate. Our zero-waste, bulk grocery store will address the core of the plastic problem and provide a convenient solution for the public. This shop will be the first of its kind in the Middle East to directly address the issue of plastic waste and provide convenient, affordable alternatives to everyone, whilst bringing the community together. Currently, people who try to shop low-waste and plastic-free have to visit four or five different stores. We aim to address these issues by offering an all-in-one grocery shop that sells items in bulk, thereby offering more affordable and sustainable options. Through a community space for workshops, we will start a ripple effect and reach more people. We work with our sister-enterprise Green Mangroves, which seeks to actively engage the community through kayaking trips and clean-up activities, exploring pristine and vulnerable habitats while bridging the gap between daily life actions and what we need to protect. We also aim to work with school awareness programs to raise awareness of plastic pollution.

Our environment is threatened by plastic pollution and climate change. We all have a role to play to protect our only home and today it mainly depends on youth. We need youth use less plastic, increasing green areas, care about wildlife, care about oceans and embrace waste to wealth. We believe that integrated waste management is crucial and work with schools, universities and communities to sort waste and deliver the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. We believe working with a new generation can beat plastic pollution and the 8 million tons of plastic that end up in our oceans each year. Patriotic Vision is an non-government organization with special consultative status at the United Nations, seeking to promote social civilization, and raise the well-being of the individuals and societies, working on peace building and saving human rights. Patriotic Vision desires that every youth has an opportunity to live a full life. It aims at contributing to the United Nations goals of Youth 2030 which is to contribute to communities. It also seeks to empower youth to be agents of change.

We have a high rate of unemployment in the Arab region. One of the main problems that graduates face is lack of experience. Most companies require more than five year of experience, so we aim to help students achieve this experience before the graduation. We encourage university students to develop their own skills and integrate them as a productive group in the community. Our Cerati initiative is a mobile app and website that provides college students and graduates with access to part time jobs and tasks, providing a linkage between college students and employers. Through our Cerati platform, our goal is to narrow the gap between the green labour market and the students and encourage them to obtain part-time job opportunities. We match and develop students’ skills and experiences with ideal and available job vacancies. We provide information about various training opportunities, workshops, internships, competitions, events, exhibitions and inspiration. Our aim is to integrate university students with the external labour market and develop their skills to earn supporting income.

The Brazilian semi-arid region is characterized by a dry climate and little rain, with long periods of drought. Families have limited access to water. The soil conditions also make it difficult to produce food that guarantees adequate nutrition and health, especially for children and houses are often constructed without technical support. Our bioconstruction project called “Casa do Semiárido” aims to promote sustainable local development, by constructing houses more suited to the Northeast region of Brazil. The houses mimic natural phenomena to enhance performance and are constructed entirely from natural materials, such as earth and wood, with natural lighting and cooling integrated. The principles of permaculture ensure that all elements of the design supply are recycled or reused, and food is also produced at the home, with water captured, stored, properly managed, and reused. We aim to bring together government, community, private companies and academic institutions to produce high-value food supplies for families. The Semiárid House will provide, clean water, food, comfortable shelter for the family, while bringing the community together by the shared knowledge and work.

Geed Beer, Rejo Beer (“Plant a Tree, Plant Hope”) is a youth-led campaign to restore hope in Somaliland. My country is suffering from an extreme drought, exacerbated by climate change. Famine is now widespread. Severe deforestation, primarily for the production of charcoal, is rapidly diminishing the small patches of forest that still remain. The need for action is urgent and so I have decided to lead the change. My big idea is to plant trees in cities while educating youth in schools and universities about the importance of forests and mobilizing them to participate in a nationwide reforestation programme. This will build on work that I have already undertaken to promote tree-planting at weddings, graduation ceremonies, and schools. My goal is to bring back the forests of Somaliland and foster a national culture in which caring for the environment is recognized by everyone as their moral responsibility.

BioCellection is tackling the plastic crisis by developing an economical recycling solution for currently unrecyclable plastic waste. The team has developed a chemical process that transforms plastics into renewable chemicals for sustainable virgin-quality materials. The  team aspires to process seventeen metric tons of plastic waste in California per year. At commercial scale, BioCellection fabricates modular process skids to treat plastic waste on a regional level around the world. Products from these regions are centralized and purified in chemical facilities.

Kids’ Corner is an inclusive digital classroom inspiring children and educators to participate in wildlife and environmental conservation and sciences through a range of curriculum-approved learning technologies, games and programs. Kids’ Corner offers a suite of educational resources for children, including workshop-based environmental programs, animation videos, fact sheets, infographics, reading materials, teachers-notes, games and home activities. Kids’ Corner provides children with an enjoyable and creative way of learning about wildlife and the environment. Kids’ Corner breaks down complex issues into easy, fun, positive and actionable concepts that can be used in any setting. Kids’ Corner is dedicated to inclusive learning, and will be available online and offline, as well as in homes, schools and hospitals.

In Ghana, the two major religious bodies are: Christianity, forming 71.2%; and Islam, with 17.6% of the population. Apparently, there is no community leader who comes anywhere close to being able to influence their members as the religious leaders do on a weekly basis. My project aims to build sustainable partnerships with these religious societies in Ghana through an action campaign dubbed, “Total Cleanliness: A Prerequisite to Worship”, which will constantly call on the attention of members of these religious groups to relevant everyday practices that can enhance and increase fullness of life. Regional meetings and workshops will be held with these religious leaders across all the 10 regions in Ghana, to officially launch the campaign and as well; train, engage and establish with them routine sessions of the campaign during worship hours and as well, persistently advocate for its adoption as a national policy in the country.

Shady’s  dream is to bring together children who are working as garbage collectors in Luxor and teach them how to make musical instruments from trash, and play music as a band. The project empowers children through the innovative use of waste, and uses art and music as a medium to nurture relationships between communities and families. Rabab Luxor Art Collective provides free weekly classes to a stigmatized group of 70 children in Luxor who work as waste collectors. They play together as the “Garbage Conservatoire Band”.

The triple problems of open defecation, plastic waste littering and street youth menace beset many communities in Ghana. An estimated 6 million Ghanaians defecate outside everyday because they have no access to toilet facilities. This exposes the public to 1000 tons of untreated feces left out in the open. Each year this untreated excreta kills thousands of Ghanaians. 3T is a for impact social enterprise that trains street youth and people with disabilities to rescue and up-cycle plastic bottles creating serious environmental havoc to build affordable micro-flush toilet facilities and roadside waterless urinals to help address the lack of adequate and accessible toilet facilities which are the major causes of open defecation in Ghana. Every toilet facility and urinal built by 3T reduces land pollution, creates employment and serves as a very visible reminder that plastic waste can often be put to good use long after its initial purpose has expired.

I live in Johannesburg, South Africa, which like other nearby countries, is suffering from the worst drought the region has seen in over 45 years. When my family and I were driving to the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, I was shocked to pass empty reservoirs that had previously always been full of water. This was the first of many times I witnessed the impact of drought on my community, and after further research, I learned about the devastating effects drought had on food and water security. I have developed a unique super-absorbent polymer that holds hundreds of times its weight in water when stored in soil. It is biodegradable, inexpensive and free of harmful chemicals, unlike the manmade materials currently used. The polymer, made entirely from waste products, improves the environment, increases the chance for plants to sustain growth by 84% during a drought and can increase food security by 73% in disaster-struck areas. 

As the saying goes: where there's a will, there is a way. Ideas drive human behaviour. Thus, in 2013, I proposed the idea of an “intentional community” to address social and ecological issues. An intentional community enables people with common ideas to live together, which is unusual in China where most people don’t even know their neighbours! An intentional community of people sharing ideas, values and beliefs, can together to pursue non-material, spiritual goals. In the absence of profit-motives, they will redirect their energy towards the goal of increasing public welfare. An eco-community is also a kind of intentional community. For construction, energy, food, and other daily necessities, the community utilizes sustainable and environmentally friendly technologies. This voluntary and autonomous action is the most powerful approach to sustainable development.

Ecofunopoly is an interactive board game that promotes environmental sustainability. This game was created by Ecofun Indonesia, a social enterprise that focuses on environmental education and science communication through gamification. “Ecofun Go! Action” is a green campaign which uses Ecofunopoly board game and the Ecofun App to develop games, facilitate creative learning, and monitor green behavior. In this project, we will develop an updated game, run several playing experiments with children and build Ecofun Mobile App. The app will be our new innovation in a mission to reduce carbon emissions using our board game. These two tools will help the players to learn and monitor their carbon footprint at the same time. Combining the board game and mobile app will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of tracking and measuring environmental impacts, especially carbon footprint. For more information visit http://ecofun.id/ or Instagram @ecofunopoly.

Better Blue is a global network consisting of divers and diving centres. It aims to build an eco-evaluation system to redefine the diving industry and empower every diver to become advocates and practitioners in marine conservation. Within one year Better Blue built a reliable community of active divers in over 10 cities and supported them to conduct more than 180 offline events in over 30 cities. Better Blue provides consulting services to the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) in Greater China and its global charity partner, Project AWARE, to help them better integrate Chinese divers’ resource and motivate action for ocean conservation.

Chakr Innovation has devised a new technique to control emissions from diesel generators. The Chakr Shield is a technology that causes minimum backpressure on the diesel generator. The device is able to control up to 90% of particulate matter from diesel engines, with no impact on the engine’s efficiency. The carbon produced is used to create ink pigment. This pigment is non-toxic and is of same quality as the ink used in industries. Chakr in Hindi means cycle, and Chakr innovation are completing the cycle of carbon.

India is a country of 1.2 billion people where over 15,000 tons of plastic waste is generated everyday. Daily users of plastic are increasing exponentially and hence, the consumption. Over 40 billion plastic utensils are produced each year, only to end up in landfills and oceans. The hundreds of years that plastic takes to decompose, further aggravates the toxic impact it has on the environment and its carcinogenic and non-biodegradable nature, makes it one of the most dangerous threats to all life on earth. Plastic takes more than four hundred years to decompose. We saw this as an opportunity to create a larger impact in society by targeting the untouched issue of disposable utensils and came up with "bio-edible" bowls. In order to add on the beneficiaries, we chose a community of Afghan refugee women to manufacture these bowls and hence provide them with a sustainable and dignified livelihood.

Biteback is an Insect Bio-refinery company aiming to meet an increasing global demand for palm oil by creating a healthier and more sustainable alternative. We have developed a processing technology that allows us to extract more than 90% of fats of insect body mass and refine them into various desirable products like cooking oil, butter, fatty alcohol, and biofuel. Darkling beetle larvae (Zophobas morio) reproduce so rapidly that they out-do palm oil in yield by up to 40 times within the same area of land, can be scaled vertically, and fed by using biomass from agro-industry waste streams. The fatty acid properties posses an advantageous combination of rich unsaturated fats and healthy fats including omega 3, 6, and 9.

Qube is a social enterprise whose mission is to change the world, one brick at a time (www.plastiqube.com). The company is currently developing construction bricks made out of plastic waste called "Plastiqube", thus addressing the issue of plastic waste disposal and also empowering the workers subjected to abysmal working condition in the traditional burnt-clay brick sector in India. Our vision is to set up a sustainable, profitable and eco-friendly social enterprise aimed at protecting the environment from plastic pollution and changing the way the world thinks about building materials and recycling of plastic waste. 

In places experiencing large and rapid influxes of displaced people, housing shortages are faced. More than 100 million people were estimated homeless in 2005 and in Pakistan alone, there is a shortage of more than 9 million housing units today. As a result, displaced people are forced to live in shelters and camps with inadequate living conditions, exposing them to social and health problems. This project aims to solve these problems through an innovative low-cost house that can be assembled in as little as three hours. To achieve the objective, modular flat-packed houses were designed with inbuilt utilities, in accordance with international standards of living. The prototype utilizes a sustainable, highly energy-efficient design with a low carbon footprint. Using which, it is possible to build large cost-effective housing colonies within a month. The project is targeted towards humanitarian organizations, providing benefit to people living in adverse conditions.

The project ‘Anantara’ addresses the dual challenges of forest degradation and limited economic opportunities in the Western Ghats in India by helping indigenous forest communities create luxury designer furniture from a rapidly invasive plant (Lantana Camara). Anantara is a collective of award winning designers who work closely with the indigenous communities. We provide the training, marketing and partnerships that ultimately leads to livelihood creation and the restoration of the degraded forest areas. By leveraging the power of design to transform a threatening plant species into luxury furniture, it incentivizes the forest communities to harvest lantana and check its rapid spread. Our solution addresses the issue of endemic poverty by increasing the income of forest communities. We convert collector-only economies into craftsmen communities whose culturally rich, value-added activities positively reinforce forest ecosystems.

Evocco’s smartphone app helps the consumer to align their purchasing behavior with their ethics. Users take a photo of their food shopping receipt to receive instant information on the environmental impact of their purchases. The app then allows them to track their impact over time, and offers personalized advice on how to reduce their impact the next time they shop. Evocco also collaborates with several universities to explore the psychological motivations behind lasting behavioral change.

My big idea is to have a dynamic network of sensors that can relay real-time data for the evaluation of changes in the environment. This type of system relies on static sensors as well as mobile aerial platforms such as drones and high-altitude balloons, which can provide extensive area coverage. The decentralized and dynamic nature of the system proposed enables its deployment in target regions in specific time-windows when there are forecasts of increased fire risk. Once validated, this type of system is especially intended for deployment in rural environments for assistance in wildfire detection and monitoring. By providing real-time data to decision makers, it has the potential to enable a better optimization of resource allocation in preparedness, emergency response and post-fire stages.

In Indonesia, most detergent is sold in small-size individual packaging, known as 'sachets'. Sachets cannot be recycled and are thus bound to leak into the environment. An estimated 5.5 million sachets of detergent are wasted daily. Hepi Circle is Indonesia’s first refill delivery network that offers detergent in reusable bottles. Customers buy a bottle of detergent at their local store, pay a deposit and with their next purchase, customers return their clean and empty bottles. The reuse habit is rewarded with a ‘hepi point’, that can go towards food or reusable products. The refill and distribution to local stores is powered by women on bikes. I co-developed the Hepi Circle with Kumala, a social entrepreneur in Surabaya. The pilot project has demonstrated financial feasibility and long-term potential impact. My vision is to reduce single-use sachets and enable to make reuse a habit again.

The construction industry’s conventional approaches to building are failing to meet the needs of rapidly growing cities with widespread housing crises, unhealthy buildings and a devastating impact on the environment. Biohm is a research and development led company that aims to revolutionise the construction industry by allowing nature to lead innovation. Placing biological systems at the heart of our inspiration, we combine ideologies of the circular economy and human-centred design with future-tech to create a step-change in building technologies, materials and manufacturing methods. Triagomy, our interlocking construction system, can achieve drastic reductions in buildings’ environmental impact (120%), build-times (95%) and costs (70%) when compared to conventional methods. It uses our 100% natural, biodegradable and vegan bio-based materials; including Mycelium (the vegetative part of mushrooms) insulation, Orb (Organic Refuse Biocompound) and a plant-based concrete. We aim to lead the global construction industry towards a healthier and more sustainable biomimetic (nature-inspired) future.