Are you reducing environmental impact by rethinking packaging or promoting sustainable sourcing? Or are you helping families take action to improve their health and well-being? How about reinventing the ways we buy, use, and refuse?
Unilever is looking for young entrepreneurs under the age of 30 who have created scalable and sustainable products, services, or applications that reduce environmental impacts, improve health and well-being, or enhance livelihoods through changes in practices or behaviors.
Building on the success of their first Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards in 2013, Unilever once again partnered with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and Ashoka, to invite young people worldwide to create and invent practical, innovative solutions to the world’s biggest sustainability challenges. The committee received over 400 submissions and nominations this year. Out of these, seven will be selected to receive a total of more than US$272,000 in financial support and tailored mentoring services. The overall winner also receives the prestigious HRH The Prince of Wales Young Sustainability Entrepreneur Prize.
Last year, more than 500 young entrepreneurs from more than 90 countries entered the Awards. Winning projects included a mobile data and messaging system that tracks water supply and optimizes use in India; a low-cost chicken feed made from waste mango seeds in Nigeria; and waterless toilets in rural Peru to a work-for-education swap scheme in Nepal.
Finalists take part in an online development program and then participate in an accelerator workshop at Cambridge University in January 2015. During these workshops, participants will receive expert help and professional guidance to develop their ideas. The Awards will be hosted online at Ashoka Changemakers, a community that connects social entrepreneurs around the globe.
Watch as the Awards unfolds this year and prepare your own submission for next year. To learn more about the challenge and enter, please visit their website, and follow the competition on Twitter using the hashtag #SustLiving.
