UNEP Young Champions of the Earth Prize

Why in News?

Three entrepreneurs from India, Kenya and the United States have been awarded the UN Environment Programme’s 2025 Young Champions of the Earth prize.

• The award is bestowed annually to ambitious young people from around the world with outstanding ideas to protect and restore the environment.
• Launched in – 2017.
• Age criteria - Under 30.
• Prize money - Each winner receives $20,000 in seed funding, mentoring and access to a global platform to scale their ideas.
• Awardees of 2025 –
  • Jinali Mody (28, India), founder of Banofi Leather, which produces leather alternatives from banana crop waste.
  • The women-led company aims to reduce the fast fashion industry’s environmental footprint by cutting water use, toxic waste and carbon emissions compared with conventional leather.
  • Joseph Nguthiru (27, Kenya), whose company HyaPak transforms the invasive water hyacinth in Lake Naivasha into biodegradable packaging bags and seedling wrappers, replacing single-use plastics.
  • Noemi Florea (24, US), founder of Cycleau, a compact greywater reuse system that retrofits under sinks, showers and laundry units to convert wastewater into drinking water, with significantly lower energy use than existing systems.

Reference

Down to Earth | UNEP’s 2025 Young Champions of the Earth prize