Five York University alumni have made it onto the Corporate Knights Top 30 Under 30 Sustainability Leaders list as Canadian youth who have a proven track record in sustainable development.
As Corporate Knights writes, they are “an impressive collection of young entrepreneurs, activists, corporate professionals and students eager to make our world a better place.”
Corporate Knights, the Magazine for Clean Capitalism, points out the millennial generation is “arguably the largest living generation since the baby boomers … and the economic and political influence of millennials is growing.”
The five York alumni on the list are: Jamieson Saab (MES ’11), Klaudia Olejnik (Spec. Hons. BBA ’09, MBA ’14), Adam Camenzuli (Spec. Hons. iBBA ’10), Mustafa Nazari (Spec. Hons. BES ’11) and Afzal Habib (iBBA ’10).
Saab earned an environmental studies degree in sustainable supply chain management from York. He is currently the manager of environmental programs at Home Depot Canada. He takes pride in being able to change the minds of executives about sustainability. Previously, he was at Canadian Tire, where he helped develop the company’s first carbon disclosure report.
Olejnik has an MBA from York University’s Schulich School of Business with a focus on sustainability. She works as a sustainability manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers Canada and she writes a blog, thegoodcorp.com, about corporate social responsibility.
A Schulich School of Business alumnus, Camenzuli and three classmates looked into minimizing Tanzania’s heavy reliance on kerosene as a source of fuel for light in the evenings. He went on to co-found KARIBU Solar Power, which has set up small franchise operations throughout Tanzania to sell solar lamps using a rent-to-own model.
Nazari, a master’s degree student in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York, has volunteered to teach high school, undergraduate and graduate students how to use cutting-edge solar measurement tools in developing their projects using solar energy. He has been designing a solar solution for charging electric vehicles and is currently a researcher and designer at Kinetic Solar Racking and Mounting.
Habib, a Schulich alumnus, quit his high-paying job to start Kidogo, a social enterprise in Africa with a mission to “bring high-quality, easy-to-access and affordable early childhood development programs to poor developing-world communities.”
For more information on the Top 30 Under 30, including York’s rising stars, visit the Corporate Knights website.