Carbon Literacy (CL) is the understanding of the causes and impacts of our everyday carbon emissions on the environment. Carbon Literacy can help us address the climate change problem and help create jobs for young people. However, there is a gap in the capacity of higher education institutions (HEIs) to integrate carbon literacy and green innovation & entrepreneurship in their academic curricula, research and innovation.
This project investigates how we can leverage Carbon Literacy and Green Innovation and Entrepreneurship (GIE) in HEIs curricular to create businesses and jobs in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. It is testing a toolkit that helps people understand and act on climate change and can also help create jobs for young people in sub-Saharan Africa. The toolkit will be adapted to the local context and then used in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa to see if it is effective in creating jobs.
The project has focused on the development of a new knowledge area, Carbon Literacy for Green Innovation and Entrepreneurship (GIE) (CL4GIE), integrating sustainable design thinking embedded as a framework for problem-solving thinking, the development of an SSA-contextualized CL4YEJC Training Tool Kit (TTK) based on the CL4GIE knowledge area developed, and development of a Moodle-enabled Digital Platform for the use of the CL4YEJC training toolkit to train the target youth cohorts.
This project is all about learning about how to help the environment by reducing carbon emissions and coming up with new, environmentally friendly ideas and businesses. By creating a digital platform that will be used to train young people from Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa – we are positive that this program will help to positively impact young African minds for the coming decades.
The project is a partnership of the Durban University of Technology in South Africa, Sheffield Hallam University in UK, Innovate Durban in South Africa, the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology in Nigeria, and Kisii University in Kenya.
”We have the capacity to create a remarkably different economy: one that can restore ecosystems and protect the environment while bringing forth innovation, prosperity, meaningful work, and true security.” – Paul Hawken (American environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, economist, and activist.)