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How growing up with climate change is shaping the next generation of innovators

Through a $50,000 sustainability education grant, students are turning personal experiences of environmental change into real-world projects.

EB_Impact_Youth_Planting — Surveys by the National Youth Council consistently show that environmental sustainability ranks among the top five concerns for young Singaporeans, but many struggle to turn that interest into action due to limited access to guidance, resources and opportunities. Image: EB Impact

Oleh Rhick Lars Albay

6 minit pembacaan March 20, 2026

For 19-year-old Nathania Frida, climate change is not an abstract warning or a future risk. It is a shoreline that she’s seen first-hand disappear.

“Growing up in Jakarta, I saw the impacts of climate change not as distant concepts, but as part of everyday life,” said Frida, a student at the National University of Singapore (NUS). “A beach I used to walk along with my dad [as a child] is now submerged below sea level, and the roads near my home back then were often damaged by saltwater erosion during the rainy season.”

Those memories – of land slipping away and infrastructure quietly corroding – shaped her decision to study environmental engineering and seek out breakthroughs that are practical, lived and shared.

“When it came time to choose my degree, I knew I wanted to pursue sustainability so I could better understand these issues and contribute to real, long-term solutions,” she said.

Frida is not alone. Across the region, young people are growing up on the frontlines of climate change.

In Singapore’s east coast, Ng Kao Jing remembers a childhood framed by mangroves, beaches and coastal ecosystems in Pasir Ris – and the steady pressure bearing down on them.

“Over time, this exposure also made me more aware of the pressures these spaces face, such as waste pollution and urbanisation,” said the NUS student and research assistant. “That awareness sparked a desire to better understand how these green (and blue) spaces function, why they matter, and how sustainability initiatives can play a role in protecting and restoring them for the long term.”

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I would encourage other young people to resist the idea that sustainability has only one ‘correct’ pathway. Some of the most impactful sustainability work happens quietly – through relationship-building, translation and care.

Koh Ying Xi, grantee, 2025 ComfortDelGro–EB Impact Sustainability Education Grant

Singapore’s National Youth Council (NYC) sentiment surveys have consistently shown that young Singaporeans prioritise environment and sustainability within their top five key concerns needing greater focus. However, turning that enthusiasm into meaningful action can be challenging, as some may not have access to the right guidance, resources, or opportunities to develop their ideas further.

The ComfortDelGro–EB Impact Sustainability Education Grant was established to help bridge this gap. With $50,000 in funding, the programme supports passionate tertiary students who are eager to make a difference through practical solutions. By providing mentorship, learning opportunities, and structured support, the grant helps young people transform their observations of everyday challenges into innovative projects that contribute to a more sustainable future.

2025_ComfortDelGro-EB_Impact_Sustainability_Education_Grant

Recipients and mentors of the ComfortDelGro-EB Impact Sustainability Education Grant come together for the first time, facilitated by the EB Impact team at the Youth Innovation Hub. Image: EB Impact

From lived experience to leadership

Launched in 2024, the grant is now in its second year, supporting a total of 20 grantees across two cohorts. Beyond financial support, it offers mentorship and professional opportunities designed to help young people integrate sustainability into diverse career paths – from engineering and transport to education, community organising and storytelling.

“It exposed me to a wide range of marine conservation topics, including mangrove research, community-based tourism, shark fisheries, women’s empowerment, coral restoration, megafauna surveys and more,” said Ng, one of the programme’s grantees in 2024.

The grant allowed Ng to pursue his Global Experience (GEx) field course in Bali and Lombok Island in Indonesia, where he saw how marine degradation is impossible to ignore.

“Effective and lasting marine conservation cannot be a purely top-down process. Local communities are not just stakeholders, but rather they are key actors with deep ecological knowledge and lived experience,” he added.

That lesson now shapes his work with plastic credits, urban and beach clean-ups, and the social enterprise Jalan Journey as advisor – creating immersive learning journeys centred around marginalised communities and environmental issues in Singapore. In his spare time, he volunteers as an intertidal tour guide of Singapore’s shorelines at low tide.

Making sustainability tangible

For 2025 grantee Koh Ying Xi, now pursuing a double degree in anthropology social sciences and environmental engineering, the challenge has been translating complex environmental systems into something people can touch and understand.

“During my internship with Werms.inc [a start-up insect farm that turns food waste into insect protein for pet feed and fertiliser], I translated hard-to-digest environmental concepts into engaging, hands-on workshops,” said Koh, adding that his student engineering projects during a recent exchange semester at Purdue University were grounded in real-world constraints.

“Together, these experiences strengthened my belief that tangible, experiential learning is most effective when it comes to learning about the environment and how to better care for and make use of it.”

He sees education as a catalyst for action.

“Education is a powerful catalyst for change when it is participatory and empowering. When people feel a sense of ownership over what they are learning, sustainability shifts from being an obligation to a conscious choice,” he said, underscoring why participatory design matters most in communities already bearing the brunt of environmental change.

For 2025 grantee Frida, impact happens quietly – at home. Her move towards a zero-waste, circular lifestyle rippled through her family.

“One especially meaningful moment was when my parents noticed that I was choosing to use items we already had at home instead of buying new ones,” she said. “That experience made sustainability feel very real and shared.”

She has also seen how youth leadership can deliver concrete results. Through a student-led project, her team Project Oceanus raised funds to install solar-powered lighting and water systems in a village in Laos.

“Witnessing the direct impact of our work in Na Xath village reinforced the importance of aligning leadership, environmental responsibility and social impact,” she said.

Investing in the next generation

By backing students like these, ComfortDelGro and EB Impact are betting on a simple idea: that solutions in sustainability are strongest when shaped by those who live closest to the problem.

As a leading global transport operator with over half its fleet made up of cleaner energy vehicles, ComfortDelGro aims to uplift the transport industry by supporting the education of the next generation in sustainability and sustainable mobility. EB Impact, a Singapore-registered charity focused on educating and bridging communities for sustainability, anchors the programme in public-interest outcomes – linking learning directly to environmental and social change.

For the grantees, the path forward is not singular. “I would encourage other young people to resist the idea that sustainability has only one ‘correct’ pathway,” Koh said. “Some of the most impactful sustainability work happens quietly – through relationship-building, translation, and care.”

As seas rise and coastlines erode, these young leaders are proof that climate education, when paired with trust and resources, can turn lived loss into lasting action.

About EB Impact 

EB Impact is a Singapore-registered charity that educates and bridges communities for sustainability. Guided by our vision of empowering individuals to create a positive impact for the planet and people, our mission is to make sustainability accessible and relatable by equipping people with the knowledge and skills to take meaningful action in their daily lives. Through education, community engagement, and partnerships, we aim to build a more compassionate, connected, and sustainable society in Singapore.

About ComfortDelGro Corporation

ComfortDelGro is a leading multi-modal transport operator offering a comprehensive suite of transportation solutions. Our extensive network spans public transport including buses and rail, point-to-point transport with taxis and private hire cars as well as business-to-business mobility solutions. Every day, millions rely on our services across 13 countries including; Singapore, Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, China, Ireland, Sweden, France, Malaysia, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and the Netherlands.

As a global operator, we play an important role in steering the transition towards a low-carbon economy. With over 60 per cent of our owned fleet consisting of cleaner energy vehicles, we support governments and cities in enabling inclusive and sustainable transport systems. For our efforts, ComfortDelGro has been included in the Dow Jones Best-in-Class Indices since 2019, the only Singaporean transport company in the index.