Prince William and The Royal Foundation have launched The Earthshot Prize – the most prestigious global prize for the environment in history.
The Prize will incentivize change and help to repair our planet over the next ten years – a critical decade for the Earth.
The launch comes after two years of work from The Royal Foundation and Prince William to develop a project which will support the global effort to protect and restore the environment. As well as identifying evidence-based solutions to the biggest environmental problems the planet faces, The Earthshot Prize aims to turn the current pessimism surrounding environmental issues into optimism that we can rise to the biggest challenges of our time.
Taking inspiration from President John F. Kennedy’s Moonshot, which united millions of people around an organizing goal to put man on the moon and catalyzed the development of new technology in the 1960s, The Earthshot Prize is centered around five ‘Earthshots’ – simple but ambitious goals for our planet which if achieved by 2030 will improve life for us all, for generations to come.
The five Earthshots are:
Protect and restore nature
Clean our air
Revive our oceans
Build a waste-free world
Fix our climate
Each Earthshot is underpinned by scientifically agreed targets including the UN Sustainable Development Goals and other internationally recognized measures to help repair our planet. Together, they form a unique set of challenges rooted in science, which aim to generate new ways of thinking, as well as new technologies, systems, policies and solutions.
The Earthshot Prize aims to find new solutions that work on every level, have a positive effect on environmental change and improve living standards globally, particularly for communities who are most at risk from climate change.
Prizes could be awarded to a wide range of individuals, teams or collaborations – scientists, activists, economists, community projects, leaders, governments, banks, businesses, cities, and countries – anyone whose workable solutions make a substantial contribution to achieving the Earthshots.
Every year from 2021 until 2030, Prince William, alongside The Earthshot Prize Council which covers six continents, will award The Earthshot Prize to five winners, one per Earthshot.
In addition to the Prize Council, The Earthshot Prize will be supported by its Global Alliance, a network of organizations worldwide which share the ambition of the Prize to repair the planet. This unprecedented network covers every corner of the globe and includes:
• The Global Alliance Founding Partners, a group of the world’s leading philanthropists and organizations who will work with us to deliver the ambition, scale and reach of the Prize through both funding and shared partnership objectives;
• Global Alliance Partners, non-profit environment and sustainable development organizations to bring expertise, global reach and serve as nominating organizations each year; and
• Global Alliance Members, some of the world’s largest and most influential companies and brands who will support our Earthshots, implement ambitious changes within their businesses and accelerate our winning solutions.
The first Global Alliance Founding Partners are the Aga Khan Development Network, Bloomberg Philanthropies, DP World in partnership with Dubai EXPO 2020, The Jack Ma Foundation, Marc and Lynne Benioff, and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, and further names will be announced over the coming months.
Global Alliance Partners include WWF, The Green Belt Movement, Greenpeace and Conservation International.
Nominations will open on 1st November, with over 100 nominating partners from across the world being invited to submit nominations of those individuals, communities, businesses and organizations who could win The Earthshot Prize. The 5-stage prize process to select a winner for each Earthshot has been designed in partnership with the Centre for Public Impact and a range of international experts. Nominations will be screened as part of an independent assessment process run by Deloitte, our implementation partner. A distinguished panel of experts will support the judging process, making recommendations to the Prize Council who will select the final winners.
An awards ceremony will take place in different cities across the world each year between 2021 and 2030, at which the five winners for each of the Earthshots will be selected from 15 finalists. The first awards ceremony will take place in London in autumn 2021.
Over the course of the next decade, The Earthshot Prize will find and highlight the most inspiring solutions to the world’s greatest challenges. But the Prize is about much more than awarding achievement – it is a decade of action to convene the environmental world with funders, businesses and individuals to maximize impact and take solutions to scale, to celebrate the people and places driving change; and to inspire people all over the world to work together to repair the planet.
