Catherine Maina
Environmental Impact Assessment Lead Expert And Founder, Green Urban Kenya
Bold Question: What if you could be rewarded for taking every day green actions that promote recycling and help create a more sustainable future?
Path to Metis: After completing my MSc. in Urban Management and Development in Holland, I felt like I now had an idea of what direction I wanted my career path to take. I was keen on focusing on sustainability and climate resilience. I’ve always been interested in working in the community, with the locals and most of my roles in different jobs would revolve around waste management, value addition and economic growth.
From a local perspective, the main challenge that was also contributing to climate change issues was solid waste management and I decided to make this the starting point. The push towards re-imagining solid waste from waste to value came about from my Masters’ Thesis research where I studied innovative strategies employed by social enterprises in management of waste through value addition activities. I felt that there was away that we could include households, waste pickers and recyclers to promote a local, fair, profitable and transparent clean resource that enables a localized circular waste economy. At the same time, include waste pickers and enable them to earn fair, transparent and predictable income.
At the moment, Green Urban Kenya has been working with other local CBOs in empowering youth and young children in strengthening their capacity and knowledge through environmental activities in schools, sports and innovations and action planning for environmentally friendly economic activities. Hopefully this is a start of something greater and I am excited to share this journey.
As an Alumnus of IHS, Erasmus University Rotterdam and a Sustainability and Climate Change Expert, my dream is to help find localized solutions for local challenges at the same time help to mitigate the effects of climate change and also find ways to adapt
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