Toby Whittington, co-founder of Green World Revolution (GWR), shares his journey of creating jobs and addressing urban environmental issues. He discusses GWR’s shift to sustainable Micro Urban Farm kits and plastic waste recycling. Toby’s future goals include diverting millions of plastic lids from landfills and helping long-term unemployed women re-enter the workforce. The video also covers challenges he faced as CEO and the impact of stolen ideas.
Topics covered:
- Unemployment
- Being a CEO
- NFP challenges and misconceptions
- Urban farming
- Microgreens
- Pioneering difficulties
About Toby Whittington:
Toby Whittington co-founded Green World Revolution (GWR) in 2012, operating as a social enterprise to help alleviate poverty by creating new jobs for long-term unemployed people and to help solve urban environmental problems. Toby’s passion for the environment started when he was 7 years old and he first heard about the greenhouse effect and became aware of the impact of deforestation. Toby was involved with environmental protesting and campaigning to save Western Australia’s old-growth forests in his formative years and has a history of self-employment and small business ownership spanning almost three decades. Toby has worked in the international entertainment industry as a touring street performer; has been a fashion designer doing bespoke tailoring and haute couture and spent the last 10 years developing urban farming and food production systems with Green World Revolution. Toby has been the recipient of a 40 Under 40 business award in 2017 and a Westpac Social Change Fellowship in 2020. In 2021, as a response to the impacts of COVID-19, Toby steered GWR in a new direction with the design and launch of their first retail products, the Micro Urban Farm growing kits for consumers to be able to grow their own microgreen superfoods at home. Concerned with the potential impact the plastic in these products could have on our environment and with support from the Westpac Fellowship, Toby has spent the last 12 months learning and developing the skills to recycle post-consumer waste plastic lids and manufacture them into new products. With the launch of GWR’s new Micro Urban Farm ECO and ECO ABUNDANCE kits in April 2022, Toby is now shifting the organization to become a waste plastic recycling and manufacturing enterprise. Toby’s product design and work over the last 12 months have recently been recognised internationally with GWR’s Micro Urban Farm ECO ABUNDANCE microgreen green growing kit taking out the award for Best At Home Innovation in the 2022 Vertical Farming World Awards. Moving forward, Toby has set two goals for GWR’s environmental and social impact: to divert one million plastic lids from landfill and manufacture them into new products and to help 100 long-term unemployed women to re-enter the workforce.
Connect with Toby Whittington on LinkedIn here.