Nigerian-born Canon Chimenem Otto bags fellow, Royal Society of Arts

NIGERIAN-born Environment and Sustainability Consultant, Canon Chimenem Otto, FRSA, has been appointed as a fellow by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) for his social impact in the United Kingdom and Africa.

The RSA fellowship is awarded in recognition of people whom the organisation’s judges deem to have made outstanding achievements for social progress and development.

Canon Otto’s remarkable efforts through his insistent strategic advocacy that reflects his commitment to restoring the Earth’s fast-degrading environment from breakage, propagation of sustainability across the world, and driving a lasting change through sustainability policy reforms across and amongst Governments, Corporations and Communities, earned him recognition for the esteemed RSA fellowship.

With more than 10 years experience as a social entrepreneur, community organizer and sustainability consultant, Otto Canon has worked with multilateral organizations across various sectors, and has helped to design, implement, and scale several social programs. This has earned him several awards from The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, State Governors, Non-State Organisations, and Monarchs.

In 2016, he Founded CleanCyclers Africa to recycle plastics and paper waste, plant trees to mitigate climate change, and also promote these practices as a lifestyle in achieving a sustainable environment, healthy communities and healthy citizens.

CleanCyclers is one of the leading Environment sustainability social enterprise in Nigeria, and over the years Otto Canon has worked with over 5,000 volunteers across 5 countries, and they have recycled over 10,000 tonnes of plastics and planted more than 25,000 trees.

He has led his team in sensitizing over 100,000 children, youth and adults on environment issues bothering around waste management, recycling, pollution, climate change, as well as their prospective sollutions. Otto Canon is a member of Nigerian Environmental Society (NES), Waste management association of Nigeria (WAMASON), recycling association or Nigeria (RAN), and Chattered Management Institute England, United Kingdom.

His vision is to create an inclusive participatory and mutually benefiting society where it is everybody’s responsibility to recycle waste and also protect the environment climate change.

Otto Canon joins other notable past RSA fellows such as Charles Dickens, Benjamin Franklin, Stephen Hawking, Karl Marx, Adam Smith, Nelson Mandela, David Attenborough, Tim Berners-Lee and many others.

Founded in 1754 by William Shipley as the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, it was granted a Royal Charter in 1847, and the right to use the term “Royal” in its name by King Edward VII in 1908, RSA is over 260 years old.

The Royal Society of Art’s Patron is currently the Crowned King Charles while its president is The Princess Royal (who replaced her father, The Duke of Edinburgh, in 2011), its Chairman is Tim Eyes, and its Chief Executive since September 2021 is former Bank of England Chief Economist, Andy Haldane.