Youth for Sustainability Initiative Launched in India by RSPO

Earlier this month, RSPO participated in the 71st AIESEC International Congress 2019 in India as the 'Leaders for 2030' partner, and launched a 'Youth for Sustainability' campaign. The event, which focused on reviewing and planning the contribution of young people for sustainable development goals, was held in Hyderabad from 5-13 July, attracting more than 400 youth leaders from over 90 countries.
RSPO’s India Representative Kamal Prakash Seth, who is also the former President of AIESEC’s Delhi chapter, delivered the opening keynote address, reminding youth to step up in their communities and take responsibility towards creating a sustainable future. 

“As the world’s largest youth run organisation for leadership development and present in more than 125 countries and territories, AIESEC has a big role to play for creating a better future for all,” said Kamal.

Following the keynote address, a 90-minute workshop titled ‘Be the CEO you want to see in the world’ was held. It was attended by 100 delegates from across the world including India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. They were divided into ten teams representing the management teams of popular everyday use products that contain palm oil like chocolate, ice-cream, biscuits and cookies, soap, shampoo, lipstick, etc. 

All the teams were first sensitised about the merits of sustainable palm oil and briefed about the RSPO’s ‘Theory of Change’.  They were then asked to come up with a business plan to present to their company’s board about how to make the transition to sustainable palm oil and launch a marketing campaign to educate their suppliers and end-consumers. The winning team was announced at the end of the workshop and rewarded with RSPO goodies. All the ideas from the teams were collected by RSPO and AIESEC and will be used for outreach and education programmes. 

A social media challenge was also organised at the conference titled ‘Be a Sustainability Warrior’. The delegates were asked to post real life pictures and videos of actions that they have taken to fight climate change. The RSPO also participated in the ‘Media Zone Panel’, which was created to engage hundreds of thousands of AIESEC stakeholders and young people in general, through facebook live.

“To be able to one day engage and develop every young person in the world and become the youth leadership movement, we need to understand young people, we need to become the youth-voice,” said Agnieszka Okroj, Global Vice President, Public Relations, AIESEC.

Following AIESEC International Congress, RSPO participated in the ‘World Cafe’ at the AIESEC India July National Conference. Over 650 delegates from more than 30 Indian cities participated in the conference, which focused on leadership development for youth. 

A similar workshop was organised but this time the focus was on finding innovative solutions to drive responsible consumption and production and also climate action in India. RSPO India will be launching the application for its ‘Youth for Sustainable Palm Fellowship’, which is a joint initiative with ‘Centre for Responsible Business’ and ‘Young India Challenge’.

For further information, kindly contact:
Kamal Prakash Seth
India Representative, RSPO
E: [email protected]