When Leroy Faure became a parent, he realised the importance of prioritising his wellbeing as much as his family’s. He founded The Fit Dad Lifestyle, an online platform that initially shared fitness advice but later became an opportunity to be transparent about his mental health issues. As the vi...

The smallest home could have the biggest impact. When Andrew Lunetta saw the unlivable conditions many people in New York end up in after leaving shelters, he realised there was a desperate need for affordable and sustainable housing. He started A Tiny Home For Good, an organisation that builds m...

Who would you call if you lost everything after a natural disaster? Steve Trent, founder of the Environmental Justice Foundation, estimates that over 21 million people around the globe are forced out of their homes by extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, and wildfires. Together with I...

Just one percent of households in certain developing countries have access to soap, according to Forbes. Yet two to five million bars of soap are thrown in the trash every day. While on a trip to Cambodia, Samir Lakhani saw a villager washing her newborn baby with laundry detergent. Later on in h...

Can caracals survive in the city? The habitat of these lesser-known residents of the Cape Peninsula overlap with urban development, and there are less than 60 of these apex predators remaining. Crucial to their survival is understanding how people and caracals coexist. Gabriella Leighton is an ec...

This pirate crew is festival hopping to claim an unlikely booty - trash. The Waste Naughts and Trash Pirates are a collective of environmental activists tackling the litter created by attendees at large festivals and events, which can amount to up to 100 tonnes a day. To eliminate waste responsib...

Bryan Ware is protecting the planet and bringing joy to children in hospital - with recycled crayons. His efforts began after learning that many restaurants in the USA offering activity packs often dispose of crayons after a single use for hygiene purposes. Over 225 000 kilograms of crayons from ...

Water is life. No human can survive without it. Yet for women and children in rural communities, access to water often means travelling to rivers or communal taps to fill up and carry home heavy buckets of water. It takes time and energy that could be used to attend school or earn an income. But ...

How do you get water to flow uphill? Pratap Thapa has figured out how to solve one of the biggest challenges facing farmers in Nepal. The elevation of the land makes it difficult to get water from rivers to farms uphill. “I watched my parents work very hard on their farm,” Thapa says. “Despite li...

Jordan Sprigg sculpts by welding pieces of scrap metal. Drawing inspiration from the animal kingdom, he creates larger-than-life sculptures of endangered creatures portrayed in their most fierce and powerful forms. Sprigg’s choice of materials is just as considered. “Some of the metal pieces are ...

Would you wear a banana tree? While searching for a quality bag, Christian Kaegi realised that most products are made from plastic. His concern was less about the durability of artificial fabrics and more about its environmental impact. Each time these materials are washed, thousands of microplas...

Without electricity, there’s little you can accomplish. Impoverished communities limited by a lack of power turn to dangerous alternatives such as kerosene lamps to get by. Benson Maroro, an electrical engineer at Renewable World, is combatting this problem by connecting people to clean energy so...

Could cactus plants fashion the leather of the future? For handbag designer Tessa Carroll, it’s the ideal eco-friendly alternative to animal hides and their petroleum-based counterpart, commonly known as ‘pleather’. Carroll works with innovators in Mexico who have fabricated a textile, called Des...

Light pollution is one of the most underestimated environmental problems. It disturbs people’s sleep cycles and endangers nocturnal animals by confusing their natural pathways. Dutch artist and architect Daan Roosegaarde is a pioneer in the efforts to reduce artificial light. His installation alo...

There’s a silent killer threatening the existence of whale sharks - plastic pollution. Whale sharks are filter feeders who cannot chew their food, and instead strain small fish from the 6 000 litres of water they consume every hour. In the process, they can ingest over 100 pieces of plastic every...

Children grow rapidly, especially in their first two years of life. This leads to an increased demand for clothing, which puts enormous strain on the environment during production. Toxic textile waste is dumped in rivers, while resource-intensive materials result in the fashion industry using ove...

Kids living in poverty lack access to designated play areas, but need this space to learn essential life skills. Pooja Rai has come up with a way to build jungle gyms in India at minimal cost. Her NPO, Anthill Creations, uses scrap material from dump sites to develop outdoor play areas. The heaps...

Frank Cato Lahti is working to end Africa’s housing crisis and the suffering of people who are homeless. He’s the founder of OTHALO, a Norwegian start-up that has developed technology to build houses from recycled plastic. "The moment you have a home, you have something of value in life,” Lahti s...

Did you know that plastic packets could be made out of plants? A fully recyclable and biodegradable plastic alternative called Ecoplas is manufactured from cassava root in Indonesia. Cassava is a locally-grown, edible plant that is versatile and easy to cultivate. Libbis Sujessy works with Greenh...

Architectural technologist Kathryn Larsen is looking to the traditions of the past to build a sustainable future. In the Middle Ages, people on the Danish island of Læsø used eelgrass to insulate their roofs. This plant offered protection as well as withstood all weather conditions when thatched ...

When skaters shred, they usually aren’t working with material. But Jason Knight’s flips go beyond skateboarding. Knight designed a skateboard deck that’s made entirely out of recycled plastic - proving the strength and versatility of the material. His designs are open-source so that anyone can co...

In the United States, discarded food takes up more space in landfills than anything else. This devastating reality is paralleled with nation-wide food insecurity. With a strong desire to create change, Hayden Dansky and the Boulder Food Rescue initiative in Colorado collect perishable food from r...

The onset of COVID-19 saw a rise in e-commerce. But up to half of online purchases are returned. Clothing in particular might not fit, or it might look different on the customer. This creates an excess of shipments which increase carbon emissions. And if the clothing isn’t resold, it eventually g...

Mattia Bernini is turning old plastic into a valuable resource anyone can cash in on. Traditionally, recycling relies on dedicated collection centres to sort and reuse waste. Bernini and his team at Precious Plastic have instead designed machines that break down plastic objects and remake them in...