- Craig Atkinson, founder of Green Riders, became the first African private company founder to sign Ismachiah Oduwole’s Climate Ball.
- This symbolised a significant step in promoting sustainable transport in Africa.
- The event, held at Green Riders’ Cape Town headquarters, highlighted the impact of innovative solutions in tackling climate change.
Craig Atkinson, entrepreneur, visionary and the founder of Green Riders, a company that promotes environmentally-sound, sustainable and healthy transport options, was bestowed the honour of leaving Africa’s first signature on the travelling Climate Ball of American teenage anti-climate change activist Ismachiah Oduwole.
This announcement was made on Tuesday 18 June, making it a significant milestone in Green Riders’ journey towards decarbonising the last-mile delivery sector in Africa, where trade and logistics are often the most challenging in terms of efficiency and cost
Late last month, Atkinson joined forces with the 14-year-old from Los Angeles in an extraordinary engagement at Green Riders’ Cape Town headquarters, in Table View.
Honour
“I am humbled to have been recognised as a leader among the thousands of incredible individuals that Ismachiah has engaged with,” he said. “It is absolutely amazing to see how a young influencer his age can make such an impact. He flew all the way from Los Angeles to Cape Town and took great interest in our organisation.”
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This was applauded by Active Mobility Forum’s (AMF) Roland Postma, an advocate of active mobility, such as cycling or walking, in the Southern Suburbs.
He was instrumental in the launch of the BikeBus initiative, where primary-school learners in Rondebosch were invited to cycle to school on the same route as fellow walkers or rollerbladers, escorted by adults for their safe passage
“Green Riders is catalytic to safe cycling infrastructure because, for the first time, we (as a society) can expect a municipality such as ours, the City of Cape Town, to invest in NMT (non-motorised transport) and the safe infrastructure this calls for, as it supports the micro-economy, creates green jobs and contributes to solving congestion.”
Postma believes cycling has a range of economic, social and environmental benefits, and “case studies alone support dedicated cycling lanes where all cyclists are separated from road traffic through delineator kerbs.”
Partnership
Atkinson became the first founder of a private company across Africa’s 54 countries to be invited to sign Oduwole’s Climate Ball.
The young football player and climate advocate from Los Angeles has gained global recognition for his innovative approach to climate and sustainability awareness.
He visited South Africa owing to fond memories of a previous trip to the country.
“When I was 8 years old, I visited Durban with my eldest sister Zuriel, who was making a documentary to mark (late former President) Nelson Mandela’s centenary, and we saw a show at the uShaka Marine World. A dolphin, trained to put a plastic rope in a recycling bin, was shoving its handler very hard and something happened that day.”
Now, six years later, Ismachiah was in South Africa again, this time the Mother City, to meet Atkinson, “whom I had invited to sign my climate and sustainability football, which I started at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
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“It is the first private company from Africa’s 54 countries I invited to sign, because of its really cool, very simple, impactful e-bike project.”
This invitation is testament to Green Riders’ commitment to decarbonising the transport sector and its efforts in reducing unemployment in South Africa.
Ismachiah has used the universal appeal of football to leverage the idea and successfully engaged some of the world’s most influential leaders and CEOs in his mission to combat climate change.
His Climate Ball initiative has seen signatures from arguably three of the most powerful figures in the climate world – COP28 president Dr Sultan Al Jaber from the UAE, US presidential envoy John Kerry to Simon Stiell, a Grenadan, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
