Harnessing the power of youth for climate action

Year 4 Environmental Studies student Lavanya PRAKASH first understood the importance of interdisciplinarity in tackling environmental challenges when she witnessed how communities on-the-ground were facing them.

At a summer camp in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Lavanya and several youth visited a local community living downstream of a mountain and experienced firsthand their difficulties in accessing clean stream water, which resulted in health issues. Through interviews with the community, they determined that the water problems were caused by improper waste disposal by villagers living upstream and the lack of water purification technology. Equally important, they realised that sustainable change requires the support of stakeholders such as the village leaders.

She said, “We analysed the issues from multiple lenses - not only from the science or technological angle but the human aspect as well.” To this end, alongside knowledge of biodiversity issues from her science background, the modules she took from geography, economics, law, political science, and civil engineering came in useful.

Lavanya presently leads ground-up initiatives relating to climate policy, sustainable agriculture and biodiversity conservation. She co-founded Hazy Waste to promote sustainable palm oil and oil tin recycling amongst hawkers. She is also the Team Lead at Speak for Climate, an initiative to enhance accessibility to public consultations on climate change and other environmental issues.

Significantly, she represented Singapore as a youth delegate at the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) conference in Bangkok in 2019 where she heard from diverse stakeholders such as agribusinesses, multinational organisations, small holder farmers and non-governmental organisations on their successes and challenges.

Lavanya plans to continue her work in the sustainability sector to inspire people and companies to strive towards a low-carbon economy.

She added, “Like the pandemic, and possibly worse than it, climate change has far-reaching impacts on society and affects the most vulnerable amongst us. As leaders of tomorrow and change-makers of today, we have the responsibility to tackle this paramount challenge by finding ways to link sustainability in what we study, where we work and in our daily lives.”

Here, Lavanya shares life lessons nature has brought her, and her hope to inspire youths to reconnect with nature.