Ankit Agarwal is the Founder-CEO of Phool.co, a social enterprise that has pioneered the ‘flowercycling®’ technologies to reduce the pollution in the Rivers Ganges, by up-cycling the vast quantities of flower temple-waste in India. Every year, more than 8 Million Metric tons of pesticide-laden temple-flowers are dumped in the Ganges, choking the river & causing severe health concerns - diarrhea, hepatitis & cholera. At Phool.co, over 32.4 tons of temple-waste is collected daily in Uttar Pradesh, Uttrakhand & Bihar and converted into charcoal-free incense and an animal-free alternative to leather called Fleather (PETA’s Best Innovation in the Vegan World 2020). In the process, Phool.co employs women who were previously manual scavengers, to sort the flower waste and hand roll the popular incense sticks. This transformational disease-free employment enables these women to shun lives in which they jump neck deep into clogged sewers & scrape human faces from dry toilets. Awarded the Fast company world changing ideas and recognized by Forbes, Fortune, Business Insider and Stanford Social Review, Phool.co is driving systems change in a community that has been exploited for centuries by creating opportunities & revolutionizing the way India handles the ‘Million-ton temple waste disposal'.

Ankit was named a Queens young leader in 2017 and is both an Echoing Green & Acumen Fellow. Ankit is amongst the 21 young leaders selected for extraordinary skills by the Asia Society & Recently received the prestigious United Nations Young leader for Sustainable development Goals award, the Takeda Young Global Entrepreneur Award, the Unilever Young Entrepreneur Awards, and The GSG Millennial Honor. Ankit is also a H.R.H Prince Willian’s Easthshot Prize finalist for 2022.

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