adepeju-adeosun

Research Executive, Virgin Earth Challenge

Adepeju (Peju) Adeosun is Research Executive for the Virgin Earth Challenge, Sir Richard Branson’s $25 million USD innovation prize to find scalable and sustainable methods for taking greenhouse gases directly out of the atmosphere and safely sequestering them permanently.

Peju specializes in policy and governance of renewables, land-use, clean tech and environmentally driven processes. “My current focus is developing more effective, values-driven communication between stakeholders to enable climate change solutions,” she says.

Peju spent her formative years in Lagos, Nigeria and was educated in the UK. This early exposure to energy access and lifestyle disparity across the world sparked her interest in energy access issues. She is working to gain better understanding of how actions and mandates from international governance, funding agencies and nonprofits translate into the implementation of energy and environmental projects in developing nations, specifically Nigeria.

“Accidents of birth should not be the limiting feature of any individual’s life. All people deserve to have equal rights when it comes to healthcare, education, security and, more recently some might argue, internet access,“ says Peju. “What links all of these things is access to energy.”