Youth
Youth are central in achieving a more sustainable and healthier planet. Young people have a special role in instigating change and action on pressing global challenges. Equally, they are pivotal to finding innovative solutions that speak to local and global realities. Platforms and initiatives across UNEP have given relevant roles to young people, developing meaningful engagement in the environmental space. UNEP recognizes the importance of working with and for young people.
Young Champions of the Earth
UNEP's Young Champions of the Earth Award celebrates the outstanding initiatives from young people to work towards a better planet.
Tide Turners
The World Scout Organization has teamed up with UNEP and the Clean Seas Campaign to launch the Tide Turners Plastic Challenge Badge, a programme where young people can learn about plastic pollution and incite change in their communities.
Fresh off the press in 2022, in collaboration with Lonely Whale, UNEP's Tide Turner Programme produced a playbook for change which shares the findings of the world's first ever global survey of young environmental leaders, with a focus on how to meaningfully engage youth. Click to view the new playbook.
Uncommon Ground Web Series
UNEP launches a new web series discussing ways in which engaging youth can bring about a generational shift in tackling the triple planetary crisis. The first episode of Uncommon Ground focuses on how plastic pollution contributes to the triple planetary crisis and what youth can do to change this.
UNEP Goodwill Ambassadors
Aidan Gallagher is one of the youngest Goodwill Ambassadors ever to be designated in the United Nations system. Gallagher’s goal is to use his celebrity status, and true passion for the cause, to help save the world’s oceans and species by raising awareness of critical environmental issues.
Wang Junkai, also known as Karry Wang, is a singer and actor with more than 40 million followers in China and abroad. On his 18th birthday, Wang announced the set up his own charity foundation—Kindle Blue Fund which focuses on youth-led innovation.
A youth organization co-founded by Captain Planet Foundation and Lonely Whale. Every year, the broader Ocean Heroes Network holds Ocean Heroes Bootcamp, an annual event to empower young leaders to create their own campaigns against ocean plastic pollution to support the achievement of UN SDG 14.1 by 2025.
Ocean Heroes HQ has also recently launched a magazine called OH-Wake, an excellent youth-created resource made for other youth activists.
Take your Clean Seas Pledge one step further:
Join the Global Partnership on Marine Litter (GPML) and tap into a global network, participate in webinars and learn more about opportunities to showcase your work. GPML members benefit from an array of expertise and the latest research, making it easier to learn more about what is being done globally, regionally and locally to address the issue of marine litter.