The Earthshot Prize tonight revealed the first-ever five Prize Winners of the most prestigious environment awards in history at a glittering ceremony held at London’s Alexandra Palace. Each of these five Winners will receive £1million prize money and a global network of professional and technical support to scale their remarkable environmental solutions to repair our planet and accelerate their impact.
The five Winners include cutting-edge technologists, innovators, an entire country, and a pioneering city. The five Winners were selected by The Earthshot Prize Council and were chosen for their ground-breaking solutions to the greatest environmental challenges facing our planet and their ability to scale their impact globally in response to the urgent challenges we face.
The Earthshot Prize Winners for 2021 are:
- Protect and Restore Nature: Republic of Costa Rica – A pioneering scheme paying local citizens to restore natural ecosystems that has led to an incredible revival of the rainforest.
- Fix our Climate: AEM Electrolyser – An ingenious green hydrogen technology developed to transform how we power our homes and buildings.
- Revive our Oceans: Coral Vita – An innovative approach to coral farming that can help restore our world’s dying coral reefs faster than any traditional method.
- Build a Waste-free World: City of Milan – A city-wide initiative that has dramatically cut waste while tackling hunger.
- Clean our Air: Takachar – A cutting-edge technology to create fuel from agricultural waste and put a stop to the global air problem of crop burning.
The ceremony capped a 10-month global search with over 750 nominations from around the world. 15 Finalists were chosen through a rigorous selection process, supported by an Expert Advisory Panel, for their potential to positively impact people and the natural world and their ability to help us reach our Earthshot goals.
Each Winner was awarded a beautiful, one-of-a-kind Prize medal, designed by award-winning Dutch artist Christien Meindertsma, inspired by the iconic ‘Earthrise’ photo taken of the Earth from space from the Apollo 8 mission in 1968 and created from recycled materials.
The Winners were connected to the Awards Ceremony by global broadcast, where The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were joined by Sir David Attenborough, Christiana Figueres, Dani Alves and a host of stars and performers including Ed Sheeran and Yemi Alade.
All 15 Finalists will receive tailored support from The Earthshot Prize Global Alliance, an unrivalled network of philanthropies, NGOs, and private sector businesses around the world who will help scale their solutions.
The Awards Ceremony concluded by revealing The Earthshot Prize will travel to the United States of America in 2022. Nominations for the 2022 Prize will open in January 2022.
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