Jinali Mody, a Yale-trained founder and CEO of a startup that makes plant-based leather from crop waste, has received a 2025 Young Champions of the Earth award from the UN Environment Program.
She was one of three young entrepreneurs to receive the award from American cleantech CEO Chris Kemper at an event Tuesday during Climate Week in New York.
Award recipients will receive seed funding, mentoring, communications support, and a global platform to showcase and scale their solutions.
Each Young Champions winner received a $20,000 prize at Tuesday’s event. They will now have an opportunity to compete in the first-ever Planet A pitch competition for a business growth grant of $100,000 and a possible seed investment of $1 million committed to a future fundraising round.
Kemper, founder and CEO of the U.S.climate tech company Palmetto, this year co-founded Planet A, a YouTube channel that drives environmental awareness and action.
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Growing up in India, Mody was struck by the environmental impact of the country’s fashion industry. India is, for instance, a major producer of the world’s leather, a resource-intensive and highly polluting material, according to Yale News.
At the same time, she noticed that vegan leather alternatives — including products made from PVC plastic or polyurethane — aren’t exactly sustainable either. In fact, like most plastics those alternatives are derived from the petrochemical sector and will never biodegrade.
Mody thought there had to be a better way — and she eventually found it.
Mody, 28, is now helping to redefine how we think about waste, sustainability, and fashion through her company Banofi Leather, which makes plant-based leather from banana crop waste.
The material, she says, is vegan, does not harm animals, and uses 90% less water and has 90% lower carbon emissions than leather produced from animals.
Mody already had her nascent idea of creating a sustainable, plant-based leather alternative before she arrived at the Yale School of the Environment (YSE) in 2021 after working several years at McKinsey & Company.
And at Yale, where she enrolled in YSE’s Master of Environmental Management program, she found a vibrant culture of entrepreneurship, not to mention mentorship and support, that helped her turn that vision into a viable business, Yale News said.
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“Yale gave me the mindset, community, and tools to take the leap into entrepreneurship far earlier than I thought possible,” Mody said. “It helped me see myself not just as a student but as a founder, and that shift in identity has made all the difference.”
Since its launch, Banofi Leather has won the Hult Prize, the largest student entrepreneurship competition globally, which came with a $1 million prize and global visibility.
The company has also piloted with more than 150 brands across fashion, lifestyle, and automotive sectors, including getting a recent grant from Mercedes-Benz, as well as serves as the official stationery partner for Yale and other major universities.
On top of that, Banofi Leather has helped more than 100 small-scale farmers in India create new income streams and livelihoods. According to Mody, one of the company’s earliest farmer partners in West Bengal used to see banana stems as a burden, something to be discarded or burned just to clear the fields. After working with Banofi Leather, he began earning extra income by selling what was once considered waste.
“What moved me most was when he proudly told his community that the byproducts from his farm were now being used to make handbags, accessories, and shoes,” Mody said. “That sense of pride, seeing his work tied to global fashion perfectly captures what Banofi stands for: turning overlooked materials and people into powerful contributors to a more sustainable future.”