IGPN - International Green Purchasing Network

November 10, 2012

Green Innovators Receive Young Environmental Leader Award

Three students from Costa Rica, Kenya and Vietnam have received a major international youth award from the United Nations Environment Program and Bayer in recognition of their environmental efforts. The young environmental innovators received the 2012 Young Environmental Leader Award for creating their own sustainable development projects; a scientific process to convert waste shrimp shells to ingredients for medicines, a community project of recycling plastic bags into clothing and homeward, and an environmental guide for housewives and families.

An expert panel from UNEP, the UNEP/Wuppertal Institute Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP), Tunza Magazine (UNEP’s publication for young people), and Bayer selected three winners with each winner receiving a tailor-made package to support and expand their projects worth EUR 1,000.

“From waste management to resource efficiency and awareness campaigns, the winners of the Bayer Young Environmental Leader Award, and all of the 2012 Young Environmental Envoys, clearly demonstrates that young people across the world have the motivation, creativity and knowledge to provide concrete solutions to the world’s most critical environmental challenges,” said Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director.

The “Bayer Young Environmental Envoy Programme” is a major project under the UNEP-Bayer partnership for youth and the environment. The 2012 programme has brought together close to 50 young environmental envoys from 19 developing and emerging countries for an environmental study tour in Germany. Each envoy is involved in a sustainability project in his or her home country. The three winners were judged to demonstrate the greatest innovation, sustainability, and potential impact.

Read more at UNEP.

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