Unilever Seeking Young People With Big Ideas

●The Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards are open to young people with innovative solutions to help make sustainable living commonplace.

Building on the success of last year’s inaugural Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards, Unilever is once again inviting young people to enter who are working on practical and innovative solutions to some of the world’s biggest sustainability challenges.

EUR 200,000 in financial and mentoring support

The search is on for 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.

Run in partnership with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), and in collaboration with Ashoka, the awards — open to anyone aged 30 or under — offers seven people a total of more than EUR200,000 in financial support and individually tailored mentoring.

All seven will also take part in an online development programme and a two-day accelerator workshop at Cambridge University, UK, where professional guidance will be provided to help them develop their ideas. The overall winner also receives the prestigious HRH The Prince of Wales Young Sustainability Entrepreneur Prize.

Applications open on June 23 and must be submitted by midnight BST on 1 August 2014. Finalists will be announced in October 2014 with final judging in January 2015. Find out more about the Awards and how to enter at Ashoka Changemakers. (www.changemakers.com/sustliving2014)

Investing in the future

Last year over 500 young entrepreneurs from more than 90 countries entered the awards. The overall winner was Gamal Albinsaid from Indonesia, who addressed two sustainability challenges with one idea: converting the value in household waste into health insurance for low income families. This initiative is now being turned into a repeatable model in communities throughout the country.

Unilever CEO, Paul Polman says: “I believe that youth hold the key to unlocking solutions to many of the challenges our planet faces and last year’s finalists are proof of this. Young people will soon represent 50% of the population in developing and emerging countries, but they are 100% of the future, so it’s absolutely vital we continue to enrol them in the task of making sustainable living commonplace and invest in their ideas.” (PR Newswire)