A 29-year-old Indian entrepreneur, Vidyut Mohan, is among the seven winners of the prestigious “Young Champions of the Earth” 2020 prize which is given by the UN environment agency to global change-makers. All those included in the list have been awarded for using innovative ideas and ambitious action to solve some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.
Vidyut Mohan, an engineer, is the co-founder of “Takachar”, a social enterprise enabling farmers to prevent open burning of their waste farm residues and earn extra income by converting them into value-added chemicals like activated carbon on-site, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a statement on Tuesday. “I’ve always been passionate about energy access and creating income opportunities for poor communities”, Mohan was quoted as saying in the statement. “(That) is at the heart of finding answers to the difficult question of balancing economic growth and climate change mitigation in developing countries”, he said.
UNEP Executive Director Inger Anderson said that ‘Tekacha’ takes rice husk, straw, and coconut peels from farmers and converts them into charcoal and motivates farmers to stop burning waste. Since its inception in the year 2018, Mohan and company co-founder Kevin Kung has worked closely with 4,500 farmers and disposed of 30,000 tonnes of waste. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a message that in the middle of a global pandemic, with societies struggling, economies stretched to their limits and an escalating biodiversity and climate crisis, we need to act boldly and urgently to repair our relationship with nature and take the path of sustainable development.
