Diego Arreola Fernández came to St. Michael’s College as a Lester B. Pearson Scholar with his vision and mission already in motion.
As a founder of the nonprofit Green Speaking, Diego used his studies in international relations and economics to drive the thinking behind his activist network, designed to empower young people and inspire environmental change.
Before arriving at U of T, Diego took a gap year; the break gave him clarity on how to put his environmental concerns into action. In 2019, he attended the Ocean Heroes Bootcamp in Vancouver, a program organized through the University of British Columbia in partnership with the United Nations, it brought together youth to tackle ocean conservation and plastic pollution.
He returned to Mexico energized.
“I wanted to make environmental activism fun and more accessible for children and youth to show them that their participation in the movement is valuable,” he says.
That led him to found Green Speaking in 2020, a nonprofit focused on empowering young people in the environmental movement. During the pandemic, he and his friends created educational videos and led workshops for youth across Mexico. By 2025, Green Speaking had members in Ecuador, Kenya, Trinidad and Tobago, and Vietnam, and he was organizing conferences around the world.
FINDING FOCUS AT ST. MIKE’S
In 2021, Diego was awarded the Lester B. Pearson International Scholarship –which fully funds an international student’s four years of study at the University of Toronto – to study international relations and economics.
“I knew environmentalism is one of my core areas of interest, but I’m also passionate about development, poverty, and other policy issues. I wanted to affect change on a global scale,” he says.
He chose St. Mike’s as his college for its beautiful green campus and its Catholic roots. In his first year, he saw Canada’s dramatic seasonal changes unfold in the quad, he made many close friends in residence, and he took an Italian course so he could speak with a friend in his native language.
Diego’s studies pushed him to rethink how environmental activism is practised — particularly around issues of equity and the global south.
“I’ve learned how people in different countries do not experience the same difficulties and you cannot approach sustainability the same way in Toronto as you would in Mexico City or Nairobi. For example, asking people to buy organic or go vegan — those approaches work in some places and not in others,” he says.
SCIENCE, POLICY, AND PLASTIC POLLUTION
At U of T, Diego joined the U of T Trash Team and under the supervision of Dr. Chelsea Rochman, an internationally recognized professor known for her research on plastic pollution, he led a project in partnership with grocery chain Longo’s to collect data on reducing produce bag use. These university experiences informed his Green Speaking work, leading him to incorporating science-based approaches and community involvement in his data collection practices at the non-profit.
He also joined U of T’s advisory committee on environmental and climate change and participated in a project with Climate Positive Energy at U of T, which took him to the UN Plastics Treaty Negotiations held in August 2025 in Geneva. There, he interviewed delegates and examined how equitably developing countries were represented in the process.
Five years later, the start of his journey is still fresh in his mind. “When I was in high school in Mexico, I never imagined I would go to Canada to study. It still seems like yesterday that I was getting the news that I was accepted and received a scholarship to go to U of T. And now I’m graduating from the best university in Canada and among the best in the world,” he says.
As he looks toward to life after graduation, Diego is focused on expanding Green Speaking in both Canada and Mexico, with a goal to change the way that children and youth across the world think about climate change, environmental issues, and sustainability.