Climate Action INITIATIVES

ANANYA PATEL shares her experience of the Gigatonne Challenge, and how it has helped her learn about community building and teamwork, with ELIZABETH DENLEY.

- ELIZABETH DENLEY

Q: Ananya, tell us about yourself and what you’re doing.

I am a graphic designer and illustrator. I’ve also co-founded a climate action group in Vadodara, India, called the Vadaavaran Collective. We started as a youthled climate action collective in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, as a lot of us were back home with some time on our hands. We signed up to the Gigatonne Challenge run by Complexity University. This global community supports and trains people around the world to tackle complex global challenges, including climate change.

The Gigatonne Challenge helps teams around the world build capacity to reduce carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. You start with a small target and increase your target as your team grows and becomes stronger. The goal is for different teams everywhere to contribute to the global movement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create green jobs, and build resilient communities.

Q: What sort of projects are you working on?

We started with composting for sustainable waste management. There aren’t any waste segregation policies in Vadodara, so a lot of waste goes into landfill, which can be a health hazard. As young people who didn’t have much experience in the climate space, but who shared a deep concern and who wanted to impact our community, we started with food waste to start building the muscle for tackling this complex challenge.