Future Leaders: Cohort 9
GenGreen
For our application phase of the Future Leaders Programme (FLP), we created an online platform called GenGreen designed to provide young people the knowledge, tools and confidence to start a career in the green industry.
At our strategy retreat, we bonded over our shared experience of being teenagers with climate anxiety who wanted to work in an industry that is making a difference, but not knowing where to find the information and resources to put that into action. Whilst we all successfully entered the industry, we know this is becoming harder for new generations.
We saw our experiences reflected in broader surveys and trends such as LinkedIn's annual Green Skills Reports. A headline from the 2024 report:
“Gen Z will make up one-third of the workforce by 2030, a key staging post for achieving net zero. But at the current rate of progress, only one in 10 Gen Z workers will have green skills by then.”
That was the motivation behind GenGreen and helped us to develop our vision, mission and values.
Our vision:
To give every young person the platform to change the world.
Our mission:
To provide young people the knowledge, tools and confidence to start a career in the green industry.
We undertook market research, looking at existing green career websites to understand how accessible the industry currently is. We also met with ourcontacts in the industry to gain sponsorship and understand their experiences. This confirmed that there is demand for a platform such as GenGreen and helped us to shape the services we wanted to offer.
We built a prototype website which offers information about the diverse roles available in the green industry, current news, upcoming careers events and a tool where they can log in to view and apply for live work experience and apprenticeship vacancies. This tool is also open to businesses to log in and advertise these vacancies.
Lastly, GenGreen provides a service to schools, colleges and parents, offering insights and advice to enable early conversations with teenagers. We created a brand which is fun, inspiring and accessible to the target market.
We shared the website with key stakeholders for feedback, which showed unanimous agreement that there isn’t enough clear support to help 14–18 year-olds into the green industry. Feedback on the usability and feel of the website was very positive.
Our challenges
Being a geographically dispersed team creates challenges around the ways we work together, but we utilised the tools at our disposal (such as Mural, Google Docs and Microsoft Teams) to stay connected.
A number of us started new jobs and faced personal challenges along the way; we always showed understanding and patience as our personal capacity fluctuated.
Our outcome
We built a website which addresses the needs of our target audience, and has the foundations to launch as a fully functioning website if we are able to obtain funding in the future.
We have built a network of contacts who are keen to engage with us and support the future of GenGreen.
We utilised the communication tools and understanding of each person’s leadership styles learned in Phase 1 to work collaboratively, ensuring we are honest, inclusive and nurture a psychologically safe environment.
We planned an event in March 2025 to come together to present the website to our course leaders and other interested stakeholders.
Our reflections
“Completing the Future Leaders course has been a transformative journey, both professionally and personally. It has not only enhanced my leadership capabilities but also strengthened my commitment to continuous learning and growth.
Collaborating with my cohort to bring our project to life was an incredibly rewarding experience. It was amazing to see our ideas evolve and take shape through teamwork and shared creativity.”
Megan Goodyer
“I have absolutely loved my Future Leaders journey! I now regularly utilise the leadership skills learned in Phase 1 in my day job, especially coaching and active listening.
The strategy retreat in St Davids was the highlight of the programme for me. I particularly enjoyed understanding our colour insights and found this incredibly useful as we moved into the project phase.
I am so proud of our project; not just the work we did, but also the way we worked together. The feedback received from our key stakeholders was very positive and has provided great motivation to see where we can take GenGreen in the future!”
Rachel Leadbeater
“Taking part in the Future Leaders Programme has been one of the most valuable learning experiences of my career so far. It’s helped me build leadership skills I’ll use throughout my career and given me more confidence in my own abilities. I’ve especially appreciated the chance to reflect on my strengths and develop a more thoughtful approach to leadership.
Working on GenGreen with such a supportive and driven team was a real highlight. Everyone brought something different to the table and it was rewarding to see how our ideas came together over time. Presenting what we’d created after months of hard work felt like a real milestone - not just because of the project itself, but because of the way we came together as a team to make it happen.”
Alex Handley
“This programme made me stop and really think about how I lead – not just in a professional sense, but in how I show up day to day. It helped me understand my own patterns, especially how I react under pressure and how that affects the people around me.
I also came away with simple, practical ways to manage my energy and focus better, something I didn’t realise I needed until I was in the thick of it. But more than anything, it reminded me that leadership is a mindset. It’s not about having all the answers, but about being aware, open, and willing to grow. I left feeling clearer, more confident, and more grounded in how I want to lead.”
Olivia Hullah
“It’s hard to adequately articulate how much my FLP experience has enriched my life – I think the lessons I’ve learned and skills I’ve built will continue to benefit me in so many ways over the next few years and beyond. I’ll be forever grateful to Rich and my cohort and hope many other future leaders have the opportunity to go on this journey!”
Martha Neugarten
“I went on a personal journey that I never knew I needed to go on. I thought people were simply born leaders, you either have it or you don’t, but we all hold leadership qualities. It’s on me, as a leader, in choosing and knowing what the team around me need. It’s not always about being the loudest in room, sometimes saying nothing and simply LISTENING is all that’s required.
I met people that I now consider friends. A group that is so passionate about this industry but also feel the pain of the hurdles it comes with, this therefore led us to create GenGreen!”
Lauren Crosbie
