Georgiy, 15, USA - The Next Big Step organization is a non-profit group that operates to convert small communities to more environmentally conscious, “green”, habits. The group will introduce itself to small businesses concerned with being both environmentally responsible and surviving these tough economic times.

NBS will perform an energy audit and calculate the negative impact of the business on the environment and their pocketbook. In particular we will investigate wasteful areas such as: light bulbs, heating and ventilating systems, air conditioning, unnecessary use of electricity, of water, plastic bags instead of paper ones, and the lack of a recycling program.

We will then formulate a method that will create a smooth transition, be partly paid for by NBS and partly by the client. The transition will correct all of their energy inefficiencies and install new, environmentally friendly items into their facility.

After completing the installation we will leave the company and return six months to a year later to evaluate the energy efficiency of their facilities and how much they have saved as a result of the transition. If they have saved as much as we had calculated, then they will return us our original investment thus keeping our company sustainable.

NBS: Georgiy, Oliver, Blake and Mallory

Vikas, 20, India - We propose to establish a self-sufficient community bicycle sharing system in India that will significantly decrease the carbon footprint of the average citizen and bring to the fore a powerful means of local transportation. The system will support itself by trading the carbon credits it will generate in the international carbon market. A community bicycle system at such a scale and model will be the first-of-its kind initiative in India and will provide much-needed impetus to the green initiatives in the country. 

Our aim is to encourage more people to join the bandwagon and trigger an explosion of such programs across India; much the same way it happened across Europe after UK introduced the system in 1996. 

We will test the program by introducing a fleet of about 30 bicycles in our university. A group of engineering students will work to realize this dream over the next six months. Once tested, it will be extended through out the city and later to the country. It is especially relevant as India is on the highway to development and we believe that prevention of damage to the environment is better than cure. 

The carbon credits generated will be calculated - selling it in the international market will earn revenues for the community biking system.

Juan Carlo, 20, Philippines - In my country food is everywhere from restaurants, to fast food chains, to rolling stores and even rolling carts, that is because everyone loves to eat. Food carts are the best way to attract people’s attention and can be able to go to different places from urban streets to rural villages. The idea is basically to try to communicate with everyone the need for an action in environmental issues and show actual and promising solutions. 

The SOLAR Food Cart will be run by volunteers from environmental groups/organizations such as the Solar Generation-Pilipinas which advocates Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. The solar cart can be passed from one community/school/volunteer’s house to another. Every stop the food cart will sell food and set-up an exhibit to campaign for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency.

The SOLAR Food Cart: campaigns renewable energy, advocates healthy living through exercise like cycling, shows alternative way of transport, promotes organic and locally grown healthy foods which the cart will sell, and establishes a sustainable and eco-friendly business.

The SOLAR Food Cart targets the local government sector, transport sector, business sector, energy sector and every citizen.

Solar Food Cart powered by PV (Photovoltaic) Panels and driven by a bicycle which also recharges the batteries mechanically.

Joseph, 20, Uganda - My community greatly depends on the available forest resources for survival. This includes cutting trees for wood fuel (charcoal and firewood) for cooking, timber for income and creating spaces for agricultural practices. These practices are creating a huge socio-economic, biodiversity and environmental problem. We are now experiencing an increase in drought, floods, decrease in bio-diversity as well as loss of soil fertility and ultimately very low food production.

My main reason for intervention is to convince people to adopt alternative sources of energy - mainly biogas whose raw materials (cow dung and urine) are in plenty in our community - and the use of biomass stoves.

This will save the forests and reduce the impacts of deforestation. Over 2000 residents will benefit. We will sensitize the community to adopt sustainable practices to natural resource use.

This I will do, in partnership with four members of our school wildlife club.  We will hold a demonstration on biogas use which will work as a model to other members of the community. 

A biomass energy saving stove that uses less wood fuel and is affordable and smokeless.

This February, we will organize a Minnesota Campus Energy Challenge (MCEC). This friendly statewide competition to reduce college and high school energy use will promote a pioneering mindset in which energy conservation, efficiency, and revolution become realities across Minnesota. The MCEC is an innovative approach for energy conservation through which students will evaluate, measure, and change their energy use habits. 

The organization of the competition is the responsibility of college students partnering with grassroots youth coalitions such as the Transcampus Energy Action Movement (TEAM MN), local high schools, and college environmental organizations. Beginning with the February Campus Energy Challenge, we will use these partnerships to change first college and then statewide environmental policies.

The competition seeks to educate, engage, and empower Minnesotan students using a variety of methods. Teach-ins, debates, and speakers will be educational. Building weatherization, energy monitoring, waste reduction, and similar projects to normalize reduced energy consumption will empower action and catalyze further community organizing. Other events (such as acoustic concerts and campus campouts) and the prize for the winning school that most reduces its energy consumption will create an exciting and lasting culture focused on sustainability.

Laura, 17, USA - Each student at Hope Integrated Academy (Uganda) will receive two fruit-bearing trees to plant on their property. They will be able to use the fruit to eat,to sell some in order to generate income, and use the seeds of fruit to plant more trees.

They will be asked to give some of the seeds back so that they can be distributed to others in need of income in the rural community. Many of the students that attend Hope Academy are orphans who come from families broken apart by AIDS and malaria, among other diseases. Some are living alone and struggle to earn income and just survive. Therefore, this project would be very beneficial to the studnets. For students whose families rent their home and/or have no land, they would be able to use the school’s property to plant the trees on.

Students would be taught how to care for the trees and the impact plants have on the environment. The planting of trees would be just one more step, regardless of however small, towards increasing the amount of oxygen released by plants worldwide, and would help make up for the amount of oxygen lost by deforestation around the world.

Students of Hope Integrated who would be part of this tree project.

Brian, 24, Texas - I’m excited to present you with a program that celebrates the last two Nobel Peace Prize concepts: environment and microfinance.

Electronic waste like cell phones pollute the environment (up to 35,000 gallons per phone) and microfinance has been proven to be an effective poverty alleviation tool. In response to these issues and as a fundraising technique, we created the Recycle to Eradicate Poverty program.

In one sentence, we recycle used cell phones to fund microfinance loans to the poor.

At www.onemillioncellphones.com, we allow anyone who has access to the Internet to get pre-paid baggies and make a difference. After entering in your information, we send as many baggies as you want to you so that you can in turn distribute them among events, in offices, to pass out, etc. Each person simply puts their cell phones inside a baggie and places it into their mailbox. 

Using this process, we hope to beat the One Million Cell Phone Challenge. Recycling one million cell phones across America will save 350 trillion gallons of water (enough to stop Niagara Falls for 72 years) and allow 100,000 women to rise from poverty through microfinance (enough to fill the brand new Dallas Cowboys Stadium).

Naupada, 19, India - While we walk out of a room having a 60W bulb without switching it off, the power wastage snow balls to approximately 22,000W per year. If this is the case of a single bulb what about the other appliances in our house hold.

My idea is to develop a electronic system which automatically turns ‘off’ and ‘on’ the appliances in a room. It works with cheap circuitry. What it does is very simple, it counts the number of persons entering a room then for the presence of a single person the lights in the room turn on. Then when a person comes out of the room the system deducts the number from the previously counted value. When the value becomes zero i.e. when no person is present in the room the light and appliances turn off automatically. This project finds itself useful not only in homes but also in schools,colleges etc.

Though this system is a complicated substitute to a simple turning off of the switches but it is essential because power consumption is a major factor contributing to the pollution, particularly in a nation where large amount of power is generated using fossil fuels. A unit prevented from wastage is equal to 1.5 units generated.

Circuit of system that automatically turns lights on/off

Teniera, 15, Vanuatu - Climate change is affecting nowhere on earth more seriously than in the South Pacific, where rising sea levels and increased storms are slowly drowning our small islands. In our coastal village, we have already noticed the impact of sea level rise because our underground wells are mixing with sea water. We have learned to adapt though, using the brackish water to cook and wash clothes, and using rain for drinking.

But there is one problem we cannot adapt to: sewage from villager’s pit toilets leeching into the wells. When this happens we have to cut down more and more forest to move away from the polluted areas, forest that would otherwise be reducing green house gasses.

To solve the problem, we would like to design and build a composting toilet for the village that keeps our waste out of the water. This will be the first ever composting toilet on our small island, an idea that might be taken up by other villages (built by us) and have a huge impact on the environment. Most importantly, the compost generated by the village toilet will be used to fertilize a climate garden that we will plant with carbon capturing rainforest trees.

Our group: Joe, Teiera, Kaltang, and Joseph

Moses, 24, Kenya - Dunga wetland faces a myriad of problems i.e. habitat destruction, pollution, hunting among others. Limited land space undermines any efforts put by conservation bodies to try and protect the swamp. Farming is one of the ever increasing threats to the wetland that continues to pose a detrimental effect on its biodiversity.

This project idea centers mainly on setting up of ecological sanitation toilets for the collection of manure. The toilet uses the principle of anaerobic respiration where the collection vault is tightly fit to exempt any water or moisture from mixing with the waste.

Every time that the toilet is used wood-ash is spread as a treatment. This is used to ensure dryness and make the area not conducive for any micro-organisms. EM (Effective Micro-organism) can then be added as a further treatment. When the vault is full it is tightly sealed and left for 6 months while the other is opened for use. There is another vault for collection of urine which is mixed with water in the ratio of 5:1. The urine can be used ONLY on Fruit tree roots to improve the “greenness” of the leaves, and also kill certain pests.

A) Local toilet, B) Eco-toilet, C) Kitchen garden, D) Side view of eco-toilet