Young Voices in the Chemical Sciences for Sustainability 2025 Finalist of the 2025 essay competition: From waste to wealth: how chemical sciences can sustainably transform waste into valuable products

The theme of the 2025 IOCD Essay Competition was From waste to wealth: how chemical sciences can sustainably transform waste into valuable products. From over 180 entries, evaluation by volunteers from around the world recruited by IOCD provided a short-list of 67 essays for further assessment, which led to 43 being selected as Finalists. These were then grouped by region for judging the Regional Winners. The seven essays designated as 2025 Regional Winners were published14 online in October 2025 and included in 2025 issue 11 of RSC Sustainability as detailed below.
Essays from the 36 additional Finalists in the 2025 competition are published in this compendium, available on IOCD’s website (https://www.iocd.org).