Lefteris ARAPAKIS

Lefteris ARAPAKIS is the 5th generation of a family of fishermen from Greece, and has co-founded Enaleia, a social enterprise with a mission to restore the marine ecosystem, while generating value to fishing communities.

Enaleia established Greece's first fishing school and launched the Mediterranean Cleanup, a large-scale marine plastic removal initiative. This program engages over 6,000 fishers across four countries in the daily collection of discarded fishing nets and marine plastic. To date, more than 2 million kilograms of plastic have been retrieved—equivalent to 15% of the plastic that ends up in Greece's seas each year. Over 58% of the collected plastic is reintegrated into the circular economy, contributing to the production of items such as kayaks, with third-party audits and open-source blockchain technology ensuring transparency and certification.

Lefteris has been awarded as the United Nations European Young Champion of the Earth 2020 and the Ambassador for the Mediterranean Coast, by UNEP-MAP for 2022. He is an Ashoka Fellow, a European Young Leader, by friends of Europe, a graduate of the Athens University of Economics and Business, and was listed in the Greek Forbes 30under30 list of 2020.