Lydia Manohar’s intent towards sustainability began at the intersection of law and her lived reality. With a BA LLB degree focusing on economics (2025), she started questioning not just what the law says, but what makes our social systems endure, and how they serve us.

Having transitioned from law into industry and sustainability, Lydia views the legal system as the foundation on which more equitable and resilient systems can be built. Her approach explores how accountability, fairness, and natural justice- tenants of justice uphold across broader organizational and systemic contexts. Her approach centers on understanding what makes systems not just sustainably functional, but genuinely approachable for people and the planet.

Before and alongside SAGE, Lydia has been deeply engaged in the UNFCCC process as a youth observer and participant. For two years, she managed the Human Rights Working Group as Contact Point, organizing side events at COP28 and COP29 and supporting a 250-member global community in amplifying their voices within climate discourse.

Warm, curious, and thoughtfully engaged; outside work, she finds balance through cooking, creating paper mache art, and quiet reflection; exploring the world around her with the same curiosity she brings to systems change.

“Once our basic needs are taken care of, life stops being about accumulating things. It’s the little things around us that become us.”

-Lydia Laurel Manohar, Sustainability Associate