The 2019 Champion of the Earth for Inspiration and Action goes to Ant Forest. The program was launched in August 2016 and promotes greener lifestyles by inspiring users to reduce carbon emissions in their daily lives. Every time they do, Ant Forest rewards them with 'green energy' points, which can be used to plan a real tree.
Described as China's largest private sector tree-planting initiative, Ant Forest covers over 500 million people, and already it has led to the planting of around 100 million trees in China's frontier region, covering an area equivalent to 130,000 football pitches.
For more information, go to https://www.unenvironment.org/championsofearth/
- Ant Forest, awarded United Nations’ top environmental honour in inspiration and action category
- Ant Forest recognized for inspiring consumers to reduce their carbon footprint, resulting in China’s largest private sector tree-planting initiative
19 September 2019 -- Ant Forest, a green initiative, has received a 2019 Champions of the Earth award, the UN’s highest environmental honour, for turning the green good deeds of half a billion people into real trees planted in some of China’s most arid regions.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) recognized Ant Forest in the ‘Inspiration and Action’ category.
Launched by Ant Financial Services Group, an Alibaba affiliate, Ant Forest promotes greener lifestyles by inspiring users to reduce carbon emissions in their daily lives and better protect the environment.
Ant Forest users are encouraged to record their low-carbon footprint through daily actions like taking public transport or paying utility bills online. For each action, they receive ‘green energy’ points and when they accumulate a certain number of points, an actual tree is planted. Users can view images of their trees in real-time via satellite. In addition to tree-planting, users can choose to protect certain size of conservation land on Ant Forest platform, which is also exploring innovative solutions to alleviate poverty and improve the lives of local people by leveraging the power of digital technology.
Since its launch in August 2016, Ant Forest and its NGO partners have planted around 122 million trees in some of China’s driest areas, including in arid regions in Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Qinghai and Shanxi. The trees cover an area of 112,000 hectares (1.68 million mu); the project has become China’s largest private sector tree-planting initiative.
“Ant Forest shows how technology can transform our world by harnessing the positive energy and innovation of global users,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme.
“Although the environmental challenges we face are daunting, we have the technology and the knowledge to overcome them and fundamentally redesign how we interact with the planet. Initiatives like Ant Forest tap into the best of human ingenuity and innovation to create a better world,” she said.
The need for radical global action on climate change will be highlighted at UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ Climate Action Summit in New York on 23 September. The Secretary-General has urged world leaders, businesses and civil society to come to the summit with concrete ideas of how they will cut emissions by 45 per cent in the next decade and achieve net zero emissions by 2050, in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Summit will focus on developing ambitious solutions in specific areas: a global transition to renewable energy; sustainable and resilient infrastructures and cities; resilience and adaptation to climate impacts; alignment of public and private finance with a net zero economy; and sustainable agriculture and management of forests and oceans.
Ant Forest’s recognition as a Champion of the Earth highlights the importance of ecosystem restoration in reducing the emissions fuelling climate change. In March, the United Nations underlined the urgent need to protect the natural systems that sustain life by declaring the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration from 2021-2030.
“We are truly honoured to receive this Champions of the Earth award,” said Eric Jing, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ant Financial. “Alipay Ant Forest reflects our belief that technology can and should be harnessed for social good. We are grateful to our many users and partners who have joined our efforts to plant 122 million trees and advance a shared vision of sustainable and inclusive development. Alipay Ant Forest’s popularity shows that the public is ready to take action to combat climate change,” he said.
Champions of the Earth is the UN’s flagship global environmental award. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) established the award in 2005 to celebrate outstanding figures whose actions have had a transformative positive impact on the environment. From world leaders to environmental defenders and technology inventors, the awards recognise trailblazers who are working to protect our planet for the next generation.
Ant Forest is among five winners this year. The other categories are Policy Leadership, Entrepreneurial Vision and Science and Innovation. The 2019 laureates will be honoured at a gala ceremony in New York on 26 September during the 74th UN General Assembly. Also honoured at the event will be seven environmental trailblazers between the ages of 18 and 30, who will take home the coveted Young Champions of the Earth prize.
The Champions of the Earth awards have previously recognised Chinese innovations and change-makers, particularly in the fields of tackling pollution and desertification. In 2018, the Zhejiang Green Rural Revival Programme won the award for inspiration and action for its work to regenerate polluted waterways and damaged lands; and in 2017, the Saihanba Afforestation Community was recognised in the inspiration and action category for transforming degraded land on the southern edge of Inner Mongolia into a lush paradise.
NOTES TO EDITORS
About the UN Environment Programme
The UN Environment Programme is the leading global voice on the environment. It provides leadership and encourages partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.
About Weibo
The Champions of the Earth are organised in partnership with Weibo – China’s leading social media outlet for people to create, share and discover content online. Weibo has over 486 million monthly active users.
About Champions of the Earth
The annual Champions of the Earth prize is awarded to outstanding leaders from government, civil society and the private sector whose actions have had a positive impact on the environment. Since 2005, Champions of the Earth has recognized 88 laureates, ranging from world leaders to technology inventors.
For more information, please contact:
Keisha Rukikaire, Head of News and Media, UN Environment Programme
Paul Polman’s words come in a rush and it’s little wonder. The former head of consumer goods giant Unilever believes the world needs to totally redesign the way growth and financial success are measured to unlock the potential of a sustainable future. And that’s a task that should have started yesterday.
“When an oil spill grows your gross domestic product while keeping your water clean doesn’t help your gross domestic product, there’s something fundamentally wrong,” said the Dutch businessman whose pioneering policies put sustainability and social good at the heart of Unilever’s corporate strategy.
“We need to redesign what well-being looks like and create other measures of success. It also means we have to look at different patterns of production, which would be patterns of growth and wealth creation that don’t use the same amount of resources,” he said.
During more than a decade as Chief Executive Officer of Unilever, Polman always dared to do things differently, working to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation and increase Unilever’s positive social impact. He was recognized with a Champions of the Earth award, the United Nation’s top environmental honour, in 2015 for his entrepreneurial vision.
Polman officially stepped down as CEO at the beginning of the year but he is continuing his mission to put sustainability at the heart of global business models. He is Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce and The B Team, Vice-Chair of the UN Global Compact and Co-Chair of the Food and Land Use Coalition, among other roles.
If anything, his passion has intensified because he knows time is running short.
“The challenge we have is the speed and scale at which we are moving; we are not moving fast enough,” he said. “I’ve always called this a crisis of morality, and the real question we have to ask is: do we really care? I believe we have many of the answers to solve the issues of water shortage, climate change or food security and yet we are collectively unable to move at the speed and scale that we need.”
Polman says that although many businesses and citizens have grasped the need for urgent action, some governments are still dragging their feet.
“Very few countries are upping their national commitments (to cut emissions) to a scale that is sufficient, and very few countries of scale have put forward plans that are sufficient to stay at 1.5˚C or what we call net zero by 2050,” he said.
Polman hopes that global leaders will show more ambition at a pivotal United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York on 23 September. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has urged world leaders, businesses and civil society to come to the summit with concrete ideas of how they will cut emissions by 45 per cent in the next decade and achieve net zero emissions by 2050, in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.
“We need to get higher ambitions and we need to understand the urgency of these ambitions,” Polman says. “Even staying below 2 ˚C requires us to cut absolute carbon emissions by 40 per cent over the next 20 years. And if you take into account a doubling of the global economy over that period, you actually need, per unit of output, about an 80 per cent reduction.”
Given that some governments are reluctant to drive the necessary radical change, Polman says other sectors of society must step up and essentially de-risk the process by showing that voters, businesses and others are ready to embrace that transformation.
There are signs that this is happening: states and cities are working together to tackle climate change while some industries are reinventing their core businesses, for example car manufacturers seeking to phase out combustion engines.
“The private sector and civil society need to get together and create these tipping points of having 20 to 30 per cent of the market on board because they see the enormous economic potential of it… More initiative needs to come from outside governments to galvanize governments to change,” Polman said.
Financial markets also need to play their part and Polman says that is happening with, for example, initiatives such as the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures.
For this former business tycoon, the figures don’t lie. He cites last year’s report by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, which he co-chairs; it calculated that the global economy could be boosted by about US$26 trillion by 2030 by transitioning to a cleaner, more sustainable world economy.
“With limited investment, estimated at 1 or 2 per cent of gross domestic product, we can not only avoid disaster but more importantly probably embark on the biggest economic and job growth opportunity we’ve ever seen,” he said.
To help firms seize these new opportunities, Polman is working directly with the business community through IMAGINE—his new foundation and for-benefit corporation. IMAGINE aims to create positive tipping points within industries to spur faster action on climate change and inequality to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
Polman set up IMAGINE in July alongside businesswoman Valerie Keller and Jeff Seabright, Unilever’s former chief sustainability officer, and the idea is to work with “leading CEOs” across the value chain to unite and develop specific targets for change.
Already, IMAGINE was involved in bringing together more than 30 global fashion companies, including Kering—the owner of Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen—as well as H&M and Zara’s parent company to agree a global pact to fight climate change and do more to protect the planet’s vital ecosystems.
Polman says those involved represent over 30 per cent of the fashion industry, adding that at that level, governments start to take notice. IMAGINE’s role is to create a neutral space for these kinds of deals to be achieved, he said.
Polman counts environmental defenders, indigenous peoples and the motivated youth among his climate champions but he hopes to soon be able to add business leaders, who transform their industries to deliver sustainable development, to that list.
For Polman, the power of the individual to bring about change is paramount.
“The thing we need is willpower and that itself is a renewable resource. That’s why I always say we need more leaders and more trees if we want to solve the world’s issues.”
The 2019 Champion of the Earth for Inspiration and Action goes to Ant Forest. The program was launched in August 2016 and promotes greener lifestyles by inspiring users to reduce carbon emissions in their daily.
- Canadian climate scientist Professor Katharine Hayhoe awarded United Nations’ flagship environmental honor in science and innovation category
- Hayhoe recognized for expertise and passion in communicating real effects of climate change
16 September 2019 -- Canadian climate scientist Professor Katharine Hayhoe has received a 2019 Champions of the Earth award, the UN’s highest environmental honor, for her stalwart commitment to quantifying the effects of climate change and her tireless efforts to transform public attitudes.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) recognized Hayhoe in the science and innovation category.
Hayhoe is a climate scientist, a professor in the Department of Political Science at Texas Tech University and director of the Climate Center. Her research has informed climate resilience and enriched climate policy at a federal and local level across the U.S. and beyond.
She is also one of the world’s most influential communicators on the reality of climate change and is widely respected for her ability to help people connect the dots between what they already care about and how they will be affected by a changing climate.
Hayhoe has served as a lead author for many key climate reports, including the US Global Change Research Program’s Second, Third, and Fourth National Climate Assessments. She has also led climate impact assessments for a broad cross-section of cities and regions that enable stakeholders to build resilience to climate impacts on food, water, and infrastructure and to quantify the benefits of climate mitigation at the local to regional scale.
“Professor Katharine Hayhoe has made it her life’s work to study the effects of climate change and communicate these as widely as possible in order to inspire action from both policy makers and citizens,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP.
“As we redouble our efforts to mitigate the worst effects of climate change, we need passionate, informed change-makers to guide us to a more sustainable future. With her expertise and indefatigable energy, Professor Hayhoe is already showing us the way.” Andersen said.
The need for radical global action on climate change will be highlighted at a pivotal United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York on 23 September. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has urged world leaders, businesses and civil society to come to the summit with concrete ideas of how they will cut emissions by 45 per cent in the next decade and achieve net zero emissions by 2050, in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Hayhoe, who is married to pastor and author Andrew Farley, has won a host of awards for her work including the eighth Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication in 2018. She was also named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in 2014 and listed among Foreign Policy’s 100 Global Thinkers twice, in 2014 and again in 2019.
“I am truly honoured and humbled to receive this recognition from the United Nations,” said Hayhoe, who has also been named one of FORTUNE’s 50 greatest leaders and has received the Sierra Club’s Distinguished Service award.
“The award offers real encouragement to those of us working every day to spread the message that climate change is real and that we need to act now to deal with it. Together, keeping up the pressure, we can prevail, because we already have the technology and knowledge to make the necessary changes, all we’re missing is the will” Hayhoe said.
Champions of the Earth is the UN’s flagship global environmental award. It was established by UNEP in 2005 to recognize outstanding figures whose actions have had a transformative positive impact on the environment. From world leaders to environmental defenders and technology inventors, the awards celebrate trailblazers who are working to protect our planet for the next generation.
Hayhoe is among five winners this year. The other categories are policy leadership; inspiration and action; and entrepreneurial vision. The 2019 laureates will be honoured at a gala ceremony in New York on 26 September during the 74th UN General Assembly. Also honoured at the event will be seven environmental trailblazers between the ages of 18 and 30, who will take home the coveted Young Champions of the Earth prize.
Previous winners of the science and innovation Champions of the Earth award include Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat in 2018 for producing a sustainable alternative to beef burgers; Australian designer Leyla Acaroglu in 2016 for her work on sustainability; and leading atmospheric chemist Sir Robert Watson in 2014.
NOTES TO EDITORS
About the UN Environment Programme
The UN Environment Programme is the leading global voice on the environment. It provides leadership and encourages partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.
About Weibo
The Champions of the Earth are organised in partnership with Weibo – China’s leading social media outlet for people to create, share and discover content online. Weibo has over 486 million monthly active users.
About Champions of the Earth
The annual Champions of the Earth prize is awarded to outstanding leaders from government, civil society and the private sector whose actions have had a positive impact on the environment. Since 2005, Champions of the Earth has recognized 88 laureates, ranging from world leaders to technology inventors.
For more information, please contact:
Keishamaza Rukikaire, UNEP News & Media, +254 722 677747
From the Arctic to the Amazon, wildfires have been burning, devastating storms are becoming more frequent, a million species risk extinction, and our oceans are being poisoned: the planet’s life support systems are under threat like never before.
The world’s critical ecosystems need our help. Scientists warn that we could be headed towards tipping points that might produce a cascading collapse of natural systems if we do not act now.
This is something environmental defenders have long understood, with many putting their lives on the line to defend vital ecosystems and the indigenous peoples who protect them.
At a pivotal Climate Action Summit in New York on 23 September 2019, the UN Environment Programme will join expected calls for stronger protections for the earth’s forests and for the environmental defenders who, despite the risks, have stepped forward to make a difference.
Some of these earth defenders have been honoured with the UN Environment Programme’s flagship Champions of the Earth award for their indefatigable dedication to the natural world. Here we look at five of these environmental heroes.
Fearless campaigner who gave her life to protect her land: Berta Cáceres
2016 laureate for inspiration and action
Before she was shot dead in 2016, Berta Cáceres spent years battling for the rights of marginalized indigenous peoples in her native Honduras. Her death, aged 44, sparked global anger at the unacceptable levels of violence and intimidation facing environmental activists.
Cáceres, who was a member of the indigenous Lenca group, grew up in La Esperanza, where she learned about compassion and action from her mother, a midwife and social activist who took in and cared for refugees from El Salvador.
In 1993 as a student-activist, Cáceres co-founded the Civic Council of Popular Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) to push for the territorial rights of indigenous peoples.
In the early 2000s, she began campaigning against the multi-million-dollar Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque river, which the Lenca community consider sacred. Locals worried the dam would harm their livelihoods and deprive them of food and medicines. Cáceres argued that the project was going ahead without proper consultation.
After a year-long peaceful blockade of the site, some international investors withdrew from the project in 2013. Meanwhile, Cáceres had reported an increasing number of death threats.
In 2015, Cáceres won the prestigious Goldman prize for environmental defenders but international accolades could not protect her: assailants broke into her home in La Esperanza in March 2016 and shot her dead. In November 2018, seven men were convicted of her murder.
In an interview with the Guardian in 2015, Cáceres explained what kept her going: a statement that will resonate with activists everywhere.
“We must undertake the struggle in all parts of the world, wherever we may be, because we have no other spare or replacement planet. We have only this one, and we have to take action.”
The musician on a mission to create a natural symphony: Martha Isabel Ruiz Corzo
2013 laureate for inspiration and action
A former teacher and accomplished musician, Martha Isabel Ruiz Corzo, known as Pati, has dedicated her life to composing a complex symphony of development in the Sierra Gorda in central Mexico, achieving Biosphere Reserve status for this ecological treasure.
A firm believer in the importance of linking natural capital to financial capital, Pati set up the Sierra Gorda Ecological Group with her husband and friends in 1987. Ten years later, they successfully lobbied for the creation of the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, which now covers 33 per cent of Querétaro state.
Over the past 25 years, Pati and her colleagues have engaged more than 34,000 people in community environmental education programmes, solid waste management, soil restoration, product diversification and conservation. Six million trees have also been planted in the reserve which includes nearly 1 million acres of protected land with more than 2,200 species of plants, mammals and birds.
Central to Pati’s philosophy is the idea of turning local communities into environmental service providers who earn part of their living from protecting their ecosystems. She has proven skilled at creating public-private partnerships to fulfil her vision.
Pati says she is inspired by the planet and the “precious treasure” of the Sierra Gorda.
“The Sierra Gorda means everything in my life, for my heart, for my brain, for my time. I’m ready to serve this Biosphere,” she says.
Samson Parashina
2012 laureate for grassroots initiative
When Samson Parashina was growing up as a young Maasai in Kenya’s Chyulu Hills, he dreamed of working at the nearby ecotourism lodge, Campi ya Kanzi, founded by Italians Luca Belpietro and Antonella Bonomi with the support of the local community.
Parashina, the son of a chief, became a waiter, then a professional safari guide, and finally ended up as general manager of the lodge. In 2000, Belpietro and Bonomi founded the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust (MWCT) and Parashina became president.
The Trust works to protect the ecosystems and biodiversity of East Africa through conservation that directly benefits Maasai communities. It works in the Chyulu Hills, within the Amboseli-Tsavo Ecosystem, which boasts three national parks. The Maasai communities own the land between the protected parks, and their territories contain critical wildlife corridors and habitat reserves, forests that are carbon sinks and rivers and springs that supply water to millions of Kenyans.
The Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust brings together professional conservationists and dynamic Maasai leaders to operate programmes that enable the Maasai to reap sustainable economic benefits from conserving their unique ecosystems. It trains community rangers to monitor wildlife, supports education and healthcare facilities, and nurtures young local leaders.
Parashina negotiates all agreements with local leaders, and he is proud of how the Trust has improved the lives of his people. His work places him at the intersection of the past and the future, and he is aware of the need for everyone to adjust to our changing world.
“The Maasai have been here for centuries. They have to adapt to the changing climate by creating new green jobs and protect the flora and fauna to create a future for the generations to come,” he says.
The pioneer who converted her passion into public service: Izabella Teixeira
2013 laureate for policy leadership
In the 1980s, when the environmental movement was still in its infancy, Izabella Teixeira was already something of a visionary, determined to dedicate her life to protecting nature. Since then, she has brought her passion for sustainable use of resources to the upper echelons of the Brazilian government.
After studying biological sciences and energy planning, she joined the Secretariat of the Environment in the State of Pará, a precursor to the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama).
She became Deputy Minister of the Environment in 2008, and then served as Minister of the Environment from 2010 until 2016, guiding Brazil through some of the most significant global negotiations on environmental issues, including the talks on the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2015.
One of her biggest ministerial achievements was helping reverse the deforestation of the Amazon, a significant initiative towards mitigating the worst effects of climate change. The annual loss of forests fell from 27,772 km2 in 2004 to 4,571 km2 in 2012.
Her policies regarding land use also resulted in the creation of 250,000 km2 of conservation areas. She also structured a comprehensive national policy on climate change, engaging with key economic sectors such as energy, agriculture and industry.
After leaving office, she was elected co-chair of the influential International Resource Panel, contributing to the landmark 2019 Global Resources Outlook, which found that rapid growth in extraction of materials is the chief culprit in climate change and biodiversity loss.
Zhejiang Green Rural Revival Programme
2018 laureate for inspiration and action
Zhejiang province in eastern China perfectly encapsulates the dilemma facing mankind: how to progress economically without draining vital resources and leaving an environmental mess behind? Rapid industrial development in Zhejiang turned it into an economic powerhouse but the environment paid a heavy price.
Sewage and industrial waste water ran freely into rivers, turning the water black. Sometimes children who played in the water got skin diseases. Rubbish piled up across the province.
In 2005, China’s President Xi Jinping, who was then Secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Party committee, launched the Zhejiang Green Rural Revival Programme, saying: “We do not promote economic development at the expense of the environment. Clear waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets.”
The regeneration project revolved around water management, waste management and recycling, and community involvement was key. Around 61,000 river chiefs were appointed to manage and protect all water bodies. Eighty per cent of historic buildings were restored with water, sanitation and electrical infrastructure overhauled to improve efficiency.
Today, 97 per cent of villages in Zhejiang have transformed their polluted rivers into clean, drinkable water. The programme was chosen as a Champion of the Earth because it showed the transformative power of economic and environmental development together.
In September 2019, the UN Environment Programme will honour Champions of the Earth, outstanding environmental leaders from the public and private sectors, and from civil society who have had a transformative positive impact on the environment. Here we meet previous winners of this prestigious award and find out how they still are making a difference in their communities and across the globe.
When 20-year-old Boyan Slat accepted the United Nations Champion of the Earth award in 2014 for his efforts to clear the ocean of plastic, he made two predictions: that the road ahead would be bumpy and that he would not give up.
Five years later, both those forecasts have come true: Slat is as committed as ever to clearing plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch using a revolutionary U-shape floater that acts like an artificial coastline. But he has certainly hit those bumps he foresaw.
Despite setbacks and criticism, Slat has no intention of giving up, not least because he believes his project, The Ocean Cleanup, is part of a tide of innovation that could deliver solutions to the world’s most intractable environmental problems.
“I’m a strong believer that action inspires action, so creating examples of how we solve the problem by using the best humanity has to offer—our ingenuity, our ability to create things out of the blue and our ability to collaborate and effectively work together—that’s what the world needs,” he said.
“Too often people working on environmental issues can be negative… Rather than rally against the things we don’t agree with, we should embrace the better angels of our nature and use them to solve these problems.”
It all started for Slat when he was a high school student and went on a scuba diving trip to Greece. Appalled by how much plastic he found in the water, he decided to work on a solution. Since then, his initial concepts have matured, he has founded The Ocean Cleanup project and raised millions of dollars to fund his revolutionary work. His Twitter profile puts it succinctly: Studied aerospace engineering, becomes a cleaner.
It’s been a roller-coaster few years and that’s before you consider what’s been going on miles out to sea in the world’s largest gyre, or floating garbage patch.
Slat and his team took their first cleanup array, System 001—a 600-metre floater that sits on the surface with a tapered three-metre-deep screen that hangs down and prevents plastic from floating away—to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in September 2018, but there were issues. The system failed to retain the plastic because it was not moving at a consistent speed. Then, in January, it had to be taken back to port for repairs.
A second iteration called System 001/B, which Slat hopes will address these problems, has now been launched and is being put through its paces at the enormous marine dump between Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States.
Marine scientists and others have taken aim at Slat’s project, saying it is distracting attention from efforts to curb plastic use, and will never work.
Slat argues that although efforts to encourage people not to use so much plastic are critical, we must also deal with the plastic already poisoning fish, birds and other marine creatures. Some critics are locked in a kind of status quo bias, he says.
“If you accept that logic, you might as well ask if we should stop cleaning the streets because that’s only encouraging people to pollute,” he said. “Seeing people working hard to clean up what’s out there can send an inspiring message that draws people’s attention and inspires others to also do something about the problem.”
Every year, at least eight million tonnes of plastic leak into our oceans—the equivalent of dumping a garbage truck of plastic every minute. In 2017, the UN Environment Programme launched its Clean Seas campaign to inspire governments, businesses and people to take action.
Slat’s dedication to the cause is rooted in his character, his passion for solving complex puzzles and a keen sense of responsibility.
“I do think I’m a little stubborn: when I start something, I want to see it through and make it happen. Ninety-nine per cent of the time when something fails it’s because people give up too early. I’m quite persistent,” he said.
He is hopeful that the team solved System 001/B’s speed issue but there is still a problem with plastic slipping into what he calls The Twilight Zone, the space between the screen and the floater. He calls this overtopping.
“We need to resolve the overtopping to have something you can deploy in the ocean and leave for months, and it safely retains the plastic for that period of time,” he said, noting candidly that other problems could also rear their heads.
“You never really know when you’ve reached proven concept because there might be unknown unknowns that we haven’t discovered yet. If it’s really just the overtopping, I’m confident we will be able to solve that in the coming months, but the question is whether that’s the only thing between us now and having proven technology,” he said.
Unsurprisingly, Slat believes technology will be critical to building a more sustainable future but whereas in the past the focus was on human well-being, now technology must be harnessed for the survival of the planet. And it will need to find novel ways to encourage people to do whatever it takes to sustain the systems that support life.
“Rather than everyone voluntarily becoming vegan, the solution will be fake and artificial meat. Rather than people voluntarily trying to give up flying, it will be zero emission aircraft technology, rather than nobody using cars, it’s going to be electric cars,” he said.
“We are starting to see a young generation that gets that and is excited about a future like that, but the question still comes down to: are we going fast enough and how much damage will have been done before we get there?”
True to this vision, Slat’s own champions of the earth include Bertrand Piccard, a solar aviation pioneer and United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, as well as people who work in clean energy.
Slat relishes technical challenges—that’s part of the attraction of The Ocean Cleanup project—but beyond that he is motivated by his love for nature, especially the ocean.
“Being underwater is the closest you can get to being an astronaut,” he said. “I look forward to the day when I’ll be able to scuba dive and not come across plastic. That’s really the dream.”
In September 2019, the UN Environment Programme will honour Champions of the Earth, outstanding environmental leaders from the public and private sectors, and from civil society who have had a transformative positive impact on the environment. Here we meet previous winners of this prestigious award and find out how they still are making a difference in their communities and across the globe.
Joan Carling struggles to find the right words to convey how she feels about the fires raging across the Amazon, the world’s biggest rainforest and a vital piece in the complex ecological puzzle that sustains life on earth.
“It really… it just makes me angry,” the renowned indigenous rights activist said.
Carling, a member of the Kankanaey tribe in the Philippines, has spent more than two decades fighting for the rights of indigenous peoples and it distresses her to see what is happening to people who have long sought to protect nature in the Amazon.
“Even if the numbers are low, they are the ones who protect the Amazon,” she said. “It gives you a sense of helplessness.”
Carling has worked tirelessly to ensure the voices of some of the world’s most marginalized and isolated people are heard. In 2018, she received the UN Environment Programme’s Champion of the Earth lifetime achievement award, which she dedicated to her fellow activists across the world.
“A lot of activists, especially in the Philippines, saw the award as an affirmation that we are doing the right thing,” she said. “The champions of the earth for me are the indigenous peoples in the Amazon, who are standing their ground… It’s the indigenous peoples in the United States and around the world, standing their ground, (and) the faceless people who are struggling to protect the environment for humanity.”
Carling is well aware of the price to be paid for such selfless action. In February 2018, her name was added to a government list designating her a terrorist. She was taken off the list in January this year but the official harassment has continued.
Carling has now joined with other indigenous activists and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, to plan a global campaign to fight against the killing and criminalization of indigenous rights activists and environmental defenders.
More than three defenders were killed across the world every week in 2018, according to the latest report by Global Witness. The latest death toll highlights the ongoing dangers facing those who are defending their environmental and human rights in the mining, logging, and farming sectors as well as other extractive industries.
Despite these dire figures, Carling sees hopeful signs that the voices of indigenous peoples are increasingly being heard, while their pivotal role as stewards of nature is being recognized, as for example in this year’s landmark Global Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
A summary of the report, released in May, said that nature is declining at unprecedented rates, with one million species at risk of extinction and the foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life being eroded. But with transformative change nature can be conserved, restored and used sustainably, it said, noting that indigenous peoples and local communities must be involved.
The assessment was based on the systematic review of about 15,000 scientific and government sources and also drew on indigenous and local knowledge.
Among its extensive findings, it noted that at least a quarter of the global land area is traditionally owned, managed, used or occupied by indigenous peoples, and that nature managed by indigenous peoples and local communities, while under increasing pressure, is generally declining less rapidly than other lands.
The report concluded that regional and global scenarios would benefit from an explicit consideration of the views, perspectives and rights of indigenous peoples and local communities.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also said in a report this year that indigenous peoples have a clear role to play in fighting climate change, provided that their land rights are legally recognized and protected.
“That puts us at the centre of the global debate to find solutions for climate change,” said Carling, who is a member and co-convener of the Indigenous Peoples Major Group for Sustainable Development. But she knows the forces aligned against indigenous peoples are formidable.
“When we assert the land rights of indigenous peoples it doesn’t sit well with vested economic and political interests. We need to strengthen the global movement of people coming together against this kind of unaccountable power,” she said, citing the example of the student movement inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg.
The mobilization of youth gives Carling hope but she worries that some global leaders are still dragging their feet, and time is running out.
“Every person on earth is now feeling the impact of climate change and if we continue with the present economic paradigm we will not survive the next 50 years,” she said.
“Leaders must... listen to indigenous peoples now and understand our perspective and how we value mother nature, not in economic terms but for the whole well-being of humanity and the environment. If we are just given the space and listened to, we can shift the direction of where we are going,” she said.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres agrees that decision makers need to do more. Ahead of a pivotal Climate Action Summit on 23 September 2019, he urged global leaders to step up to deal with a “dramatic climate emergency”, saying the world has the tools but political will is lacking.
Carling, who has attended some preparatory meetings for the Summit, hopes to see some urgent changes.
“Nobody is really standing up and saying, ‘this is the moment for us to act together in the spirit of global solidarity and action’. They are still confined to their own national interests. We need to go beyond that because climate change knows no borders, so actions should also be global.”
As some populist leaders, who some feel are showing too little interest in mitigating climate change, rise to power in several countries, Carling says it is time for citizens to tackle the growing divides by starting a dialogue and seeking to understand the other’s fears and concerns.
Change will eventually have to come from the bottom up and take account of the views of indigenous peoples and marginalized groups, Carling says. Decision-making on climate solutions should include those who are heavily affected and transform global economic and political power so it is accountable to the people.
Carling has helped set up the Right Energy Partnership with Indigenous Peoples that aims to ensure that renewable energy projects are fully aligned with the respect and protection of human rights, and provide at least 50 million indigenous peoples with access to renewable energy by 2030.
“A lot of renewable energy, like wind farms and solar farms, are in indigenous territories. However, the energy is not for us... It’s business as usual in terms of land grabbing, lack of equitable benefit-sharing and violation of people’s rights. Indigenous peoples fully support the just transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and this should be in line with the protection of human rights and the principles of equity and justice,” she said.
At the heart of Carling’s belief system is the certainty that the people on the ground must be front-and-centre in the race against destructive climate change. And not because it is ethically correct to do so, but because they have the solutions.
“We are not just vulnerable groups; we are actors, contributors and agents of change… If world leaders listen to us, acknowledge the contributions we make, protect our lands and respect our rights, we can go a long way.”
This certainty that the solutions are there for the taking gives Carling hope.
“For me, there is no space to be pessimistic. I always try to see the bright side of things because otherwise, who will take action? That is the spirit of activism. We just have to persist and strengthen our movements for a better world.”
In September 2019, the UN Environment Programme will honour Champions of the Earth, outstanding environmental leaders from the public and private sectors, and from civil society who have had a transformative positive impact on the environment. Here we meet previous winners of this prestigious award and find out how they still are making a difference in their communities and across the globe.
Leyla Acaroglu traces her passion for disruptive design to twin epiphanies in her late teens: the realization that her survival was intrinsically linked to the health of the planet and the simultaneous conviction that she was incredibly privileged to be able to do something about that life-changing appreciation.
“I was really surprised that nobody had told me that everything is interconnected, including me. Every second of every day, I rely on the planet to survive and my health and well-being is directly linked to the natural environment,” the Australian said.
Just as she grasped her place in the natural ecosystem, another epiphany struck.
“I was pen pals with a young female refugee in one of the detention centres in Australia. She was my age and she had fled Iran and wanted to study. I was very moved by the reality of my freedom and her lack of freedom… It became very obvious to me that as a young female who was fortunate enough to grow up in Australia, I was able to agentize myself… and commit to something that was going to have a bigger impact than just my immediate needs.”
And so she did. Today, Acaroglu is a self-proclaimed “positive disruptor”, an educator, a designer, a social scientist and a powerful advocate for a new world order where the take-make-dispose logic of the linear global economy will be replaced with a circular and regenerative model.
In 2016, Acaroglu won the UN Environment Programme’s Champion of the Earth award for science and innovation for her work to bring about positive environmental and social change through innovation.
“Winning the award really helped establish some of the work I’ve been doing as a professional ‘positive disruptor’ and allows more people to see that there are different ways to engage with the big problems we face,” she said.
Among her many projects, Acaroglu devised the Disruptive Design Method to promote circularity in all aspects of product and service creation. She creates educational programmes on circularity, advises businesses on sustainability and has bought a farm in Portugal to regenerate and restore.
Through it all, she has held onto the empathy that inspired her younger self.
“A lot of the reason I do sustainability is because of the entrenched poverty and lack of opportunity faced by so many people,” she said. “I could never undo that experience of realizing that I had a voice to speak for other people… For every one of me, there are 10,000 potential mes that don’t have that opportunity.”
Acaroglu’s multifaceted expertise and boundless enthusiasm for sustainable living are exactly the qualities expected to be on display at a pivotal Climate Action Summit in New York on 23 September 2019.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has urged world leaders, businesses and civil society to come to the summit with concrete ideas of how they will cut emissions by 45 per cent in the next decade and achieve net zero emissions by 2050, in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. What is required is a full transformation of global economies.
This is Acaroglu’s philosophy in a nutshell. But she recognizes that the status quo is a powerful force that can limit leaders’ potential to tackle problems effectively.
“It is important that we give people—at all levels of decision-making and power—the opportunity to change their minds, to think differently, to experience what it could be like if we do not just reinforce the status quo of diplomacy and of business,” she said.
One of the most pervasive and persistent examples of the status quo is the linear nature of the global economy.
“The linear production model is an addictive model and so nearly every business, even the ones that want to transfer to a circular economy, are addicted to a linear model of selling consumers goods designed for landfill,” she said, noting that a global reconditioning of business is required to turn this notion on its head.
It is an enormous ask but there are signs of progress with more dynamic leaders coming forward and daring to disrupt traditional ways of doing business.
Acaroglu cites recycling firm TerraCycle’s Loop system, a global shopping and reuse platform, as a positive movement towards a fully circular production system, and says many small and medium-sized enterprises are seriously committing to circularity. She is also delighted to see more design agencies seeking her advice on providing circular economy services to their clients.
This shift is partly the result of consumers demanding more sustainable products and services. Acaroglu is working with the UN Environment Programme on a sustainability lifestyle project called Anatomy of Action that aims to show that each individual can be part of the solution by making informed, deliberate choices about how they live and what they consume. This is one of many initiatives being undertaken across the UN System of funds, programmes and agencies as part of a larger social mobilization campaign called #ActNow. Over 170,000 actions have been logged on the ActNow platform. The activities raise awareness, ambition, and action on climate and hope to accelerate implementation of the Paris Agreement and sustainable living overall.
Acaroglu is passionate about the need to equip young people with the cognitive and creative tools necessary to take a leap into an alternative future. In 2014, she founded The UnSchool of Disruptive Design—a global experimental knowledge laboratory for creative rebels and change agents. If Acaroglu’s work inspires these budding innovators, they also galvanize her.
“The UnSchool and the work I do with these people who are coming to learn how to change in the world, is the biggest optimism shot I could get any day of the week,” she said.
In her bid to rework education, Acaroglu has designed a circular economy curriculum—the Circular Classroom—for Finland and is working on another for Southeast Asia. She is also a passionate advocate for disrupting the gender-based stereotypes of leadership. This thinking reflects calls by the United Nations for women to be included as key decision makers in the critical transformation needed to tackle climate change.
“The gender debate is not one-sided,” Acaroglu said. “What we need is for women to be given more space to show leadership and men to be given more space to be emotionally mature and intelligent. It’s a big problem and I would love to see it tackled because it directly affects our ability to solve problems.”
Her own environmental champions include Afroz Shah, the Indian lawyer behind the world’s biggest beach clean-up in Mumbai and a fellow Champion of the Earth, and designer Ron Finley, the ‘gangsta gardener’ on a mission to bring urban gardening to South Los Angeles and beyond.
For Acaroglu, leadership through action is key but inspiring others to step up becomes more difficult when the prevailing narrative is one of despair. This idea that our climate crisis is too profound and too complex to address is sapping the energy of younger generations, Acaroglu says. Yet again education and understanding are key. Learning to hope may be the most important lesson of all.
“When you understand that the world is this dynamic, interconnected, chaotic mess of opportunity and challenges, then you are equipped with the tools to see that you can turn challenges into something else. That resilience, the ability to be flexible in the mind and see the future as being different to the present, that’s something we need to make sure all of our young people have,” she said.
“Now is the time to take all of that technology and all of that power and that collaboration and figure out how to be a force that is giving back to the planet that created us rather than continually extracting. That’s the challenge of my lifetime and I hope to inspire future generations to be able to take on that challenge.”
A corporate titan with an unconventional agenda; the food specialists who looked outside the (takeaway) box; the ocean explorer whose name has become synonymous with conservation: these are just some of the environmental heroes who have dedicated their lives to bringing their audacious visions of a better world to life.
These pioneers are all previous winners of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Champions of the Earth award—the world’s flagship environmental honour—and their actions have inspired others to join them in their fight for a cleaner, fairer and more sustainable world.
As the countdown begins to the announcement of this year’s Champions of the Earth, and ahead of a pivotal Climate Action Summit in New York on 23 September 2019, the energy and vision demonstrated by previous Champions are needed more than ever as the world races to decisively cut carbon emissions before the worst effects of global warming become inevitable.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres wants world leaders, businesses and civil society to come to the Summit with concrete plans to cut emissions by 45 per cent in the next decade and achieve net zero emissions by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and the Sustainable Development Goals.
What is required is nothing less than a complete transformation of economies and societies. In short, it’s a job for heroes.
Thankfully, we already have model citizens to lead us forward. The Champions of the Earth have shown year after year that real change is possible if individuals commit to overhaul the way they live so that we safeguard the planet’s resources and ensure our own survival.
Here we look at five Champions of the Earth who transformed their own worlds.
The trailblazing tycoon: Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever
2015 laureate for entrepreneurial vision
During more than a decade as Chief Executive Officer of consumer goods giant Unilever, Paul Polman always dared to do things differently. Long before “sustainability” became a buzzword, he sought to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation and increase Unilever’s positive social impact.
Since stepping down last year, Polman has continued his work to put sustainability at the heart of global business. He is chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce and recently co-founded the Imagine foundation to help eradicate poverty and stem climate change by helping companies pursue the Sustainable Development Goals. He announced the news on Twitter, quoting the lyrics of the John Lennon song: “You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one.”
Polman would like to see “heroic Chief Executive Officers” drive a shift to a low-carbon, more inclusive way of doing business. This call chimes perfectly with one of the six priorities laid out by Guterres for the Climate Action Summit—mobilizing public and private sources of finance to drive decarbonization of all priority sectors and advance resilience.
The Summit’s ambitious agenda finds an echo in Polman’s heart: tweeting out Guterres’ call for urgent action at the meeting, he wrote: “With extreme heat getting worse, nature is telling us what we already know: there’s no time to waste against climate change.”
The food mavericks: Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods
2018 laureates for science and innovation
The role of agriculture in the production of greenhouse gases has led to mounting calls for people to move towards a more plant-based diet. But how can you get hungry, red meat-loving consumers to shift?
The entrepreneurial founders of Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, who won the Champions of the Earth award for creating sustainable alternatives to beef burgers, took up that challenge with gusto.
Beyond Meat worked with top scientists to strip down the core components of meat and extract them from plants instead, using ingredients like peas, beetroot, coconut oil and potato starch.
Impossible Foods took a slightly different tack to arrive at a similar result. Chief Executive Officer Patrick O. Brown’s team discovered an iron-containing molecule that occurs naturally in every cell of every animal and plant and that is responsible for the unique flavours and aromas of meat. They used this knowledge to produce a meatless burger.
The two companies have tapped into a growing demand, especially among younger consumers, for products that are good for both planet and people, proving that it makes good business sense to harness this hunger for products that don’t cost the earth.
Their can-do attitude is exactly what’s needed on a global scale to tackle our climate crisis.
As Patrick O. Brown says: “There are huge global problems, but they are solvable and we’re going to solve them. Just wait.”
The Son of the Desert: Wang Wenbiao, Chairman of Elion Resources Group
2017 laureate for lifetime achievement
When Wang Wenbiao bought the Hangjinqi Saltworks in the middle of the Kubuqi desert in Inner Mongolia in 1988, he embarked on an adventure that would see him rise to the top of the country’s largest private green industries enterprise, Elion Resources Group.
His journey began, as most interesting journeys do, with a problem—how to make the saltworks profitable when the creeping desert was swallowing the salt lake, damaging equipment and making it difficult to transport the salt to market?
Wang, who grew up in Kubuqi, partnered with local communities and the Beijing government to fight the advancing sands and give hope to some of the 70,000 people who had been struggling to survive. In doing so, he showed how private industry could contribute to the fight against climate change and environmental degradation, while still turning a profit.
Wang set up a special fund to pay for afforestation and assigned a third of his staff to plant trees around the lake. He also encouraged local people to grow licorice, a hardy plant that grows well in deserts and is widely used in traditional Chinese medicine. Elion provided locals with seeds, training and other support, and also bought the harvest at a fair price.
Today, around two thirds of the desert has been greened and Wang, who is known as the Son of the Desert, says he is in it for the long haul.
“Greening the deserts is like a marathon, as long as there is a desert, my marathon will not come to an end,” he said.
The Dutch dreamer: Boyan Slat
2014 laureate for inspiration and action
Dutch inventor Boyan Slat was only 19 when he won the Champion of the Earth award for inspiration and action but he was already a young man on a mission: to clean the seas of plastic waste using a revolutionary floating boom.
Since then, Slat has brought his vision to life with The Ocean Cleanup project and although his team was forced to bring the first prototype back to port, they have now returned to sea, hoping to scoop up some of the trillions of pieces of plastic that are choking our fish, killing marine wildlife, damaging coral reefs and turning beaches into rubbish dumps.
Slat’s ongoing passion for the project reflects growing public concern. In 2017, the UN Environment Programme launched its Clean Seas campaign to inspire governments, businesses and people to take action, including cleaning beaches, cutting plastic use and investing more in recycling facilities.
Slat’s original System 001—a 600-metre-long U-shaped floater with a tapered three-metre-deep skirt attached below to trap the plastic—was launched in September 2018 and towed to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a gigantic swell of rubbish twice the size of France.
But The Ocean Cleanup team found that the floater was failing to hold onto the plastic. They tried to modify the design at sea, but were eventually forced to tow the system back to port after it suffered a fatigue fracture.
More tests and modifications were needed but in August, Slat said System 001/B had arrived at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
“We move forward cautiously knowing we may be presented with more unscheduled learning opportunities… Yet it is safe to say that we are closer than ever to having a tool capable of cleaning up these garbage patches for good,” he wrote on The Ocean Cleanup website.
Her Deepness: Sylvia Earle
2014 laureate for lifetime leadership
A renowned pioneer of deep sea exploration and a distinguished marine biologist, Sylvia Earle has dedicated her life to exploring and protecting the oceans. Her philosophy is simple: “We need to respect the oceans and take care of them as if our lives depended on it. Because they do.”
Earle, 83, has logged more than 7,000 hours underwater across over 100 expeditions—including leading the first team of women aquanauts and setting a record for solo diving to a depth of 1,000-metres. Her list of laudatory titles is impressive: she has been called Her Deepness, a Living Legend, a Hero for the Planet, and the Face of Marine Biology.
Earle was the first woman to serve as the Chief Scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and, since 1998, she has been Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society.
She is also the founder of Deep Ocean Exploration and Research Inc and the Sylvia Earle Alliance as well as being the leader of the National Geographic Society Sustainable Seas Expeditions.
In 2009, she founded Mission Blue, a global alliance to ignite public support for the protection of a network of Hope Spots—special places that are vital to the health of the ocean. The alliance aims to bring about a significant increase in ocean protection by 2020.
In 2014, she was awarded the Champions of the Earth prize for lifetime leadership. And that works goes on. Earle is still travelling the world, seeking to inspire others with her passion to preserve our seas.
