Prince William announces 15 Finalists for inaugural year of the £50 million Earthshot Prize
17.9.2021 20:01:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
The Earthshot Prize announces today its first-ever shortlist of 15 Finalists, each with a chance of winning £1million to support their innovative environmental solutions to the greatest challenges facing the planet.
Prince William said: "Over half a century ago, President Kennedy’s ‘Moonshot’ programme united millions of people around the goal of reaching the moon. Inspired by this, The Earthshot Prize aims to mobilise collective action around our unique ability to innovate, problem solve and repair our planet.
“I am honoured to introduce the 15 innovators, leaders, and visionaries who are the first ever Finalists for The Earthshot Prize. They are working with the urgency required in this decisive decade for life on Earth and will inspire all of us with their optimism in our ability to rise to the greatest challenges in human history.”
Launched by Prince William and The Royal Foundation in October 2020, The Earthshot Prize is the most prestigious global environment prize in history. Like President John F. Kennedy’s ‘Moonshot’ did almost 60 years ago, the Prize aims to unleash an unprecedented wave of innovation and leadership to tackle our greatest environmental challenges. The Earthshot Prize will be awarded every year for the next decade, discovering a total of 50 Winners.
Five of these 15 Finalists will be awarded The Earthshot Prize and will win £1million in Prize funding for the best solutions of the five Earthshot goals: Protect and Restore Nature; Clean our Air; Revive our Oceans; Build a Waste-free World; and Fix our Climate. The Winners will be announced during an awards ceremony on 17th October from London’s Alexandra Palace, broadcast in the UK on BBC One and globally on Discovery+.
The Earthshot Prize Finalists for 2021 are:
Protect and Restore Nature:
- Pole Pole Foundation, Democratic Republic of Congo
An inspiring community-led model of conservation that protects gorillas and local livelihoods.
- The Republic of Costa Rica
A pioneering scheme paying local citizens to restore natural ecosystems that has led to a revival of the rainforest.
- Restor, Switzerland
A ground-breaking online platform connecting and empowering local conservation projects.
Clean our Air:
- The Blue Map App, China
China’s first public environmental database enabling citizens to hold polluters to account.
- Takachar, India
A pioneering technology to create profitable products from agricultural waste and put a stop to the burning of crops.
- Vinisha Umashankar, India
A 14-year-old innovator and activist who has designed a solar-powered ironing cart with the potential to improve air quality across India.
Revive our Oceans:
- Coral Vita, Bahamas
A truly cutting-edge breakthrough in coral farming that can restore our world’s dying coral reefs.
- Living Seawalls, Australia
Innovative and replicable seawall panels bringing marine life back to coastal sea defences.
- Pristine Seas, USA
An unprecedented global conservation programme protecting 6.5 million square km of the world’s ocean.
Build a Waste-Free World:
- The City of Milan Food Waste Hubs, Italy
A city-wide initiative that has dramatically cut waste while tackling hunger.
- Sanergy, Kenya
A circular sanitation solution that converts human waste into safe products for local farmers.
- WOTA BOX, Japan
A tiny water treatment plant that turns 98% of wastewater into clean water.
Fix our Climate:
- AEM Electrolyser, Thailand/Germany/Italy
An ingenious green hydrogen technology developed to transform how we power our homes and buildings.
- Reeddi Capsules, Nigeria
Solar-powered energy capsules making electricity affordable and accessible in energy-poor communities.
- SOLbazaar, Bangladesh
The world’s first peer-to-peer energy exchange network in a country on the front-line of climate change.
All 15 Finalists will receive support from The Earthshot Prize Global Alliance Members, an unprecedented network of global businesses, who will help scale their solutions for even greater impact.
Of these 15 Finalists, the five Winners will be selected by The Earthshot Prize Council, a diverse team of influential individuals which includes: HRH Prince William, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, Sir David Attenborough, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Indra Nooyi, Shakira Mebarak, Christiana Figueres, Luisa Neubauer, Cate Blanchett, Yao Ming, Daniel Alves Da Silva, Ernest Gibson, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Jack Ma, and Naoko Yamazaki.
In the run-up to the prize-giving ceremony on 17 October, BBC and Discovery will release a 5-part documentary series THE EARTHSHOT PRIZE: REPAIRING OUR PLANET, featuring Earthshot Prize Council Members including Prince William, Shakira Mebarak, Daniel Alves Da Silva and Sir David Attenborough.
For more information about the Finalists and The Earthshot Prize, visit: www.earthshotprize.org, email Claire Straw: TEPmedia@freuds.com, download media pack here.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210917005454/en/
Contact information
Claire Straw:
TEPmedia@freuds.com
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Digital Reef Signs Offtake Agreement with Oreasoc Agriculture to Mitigate the Environmental Footprint of Data Centre Growth Through Rainforest Protection, Appointing Xange.com as Digital MRV Partner25.9.2026 22:19:00 EEST | Press release
At Climate Week NYC, Digital Reef and Oreasoc Agriculture Inc. sign an offtake agreement connecting Digital Reef’s 3.3 GW data centre pipeline with environmental assets exceeding 30 million hectares of South American Amazon rainforest, mitigating the environmental footprint of data centre growth through rainforest protection and restoration where Oreasoc works alongside local communities to protect biodiversity, develop sustainable economies and safeguard their territories. Xange.com are appointed as digital MRV technology partner to monitor the data centres and rainforest where Digital Reef will purchase verified environmental assets generated by Oreasoc, supporting the development of low-carbon data centres mitigating their environmental footprint through the protection of high-integrity natural ecosystems across the South American Amazon, whilst advancing sustainable economic development. AI and data centre demand is driving rapid growth, with the International Energy Agency project
NetApp Announces Intent to Acquire PEAK:AIO to Advance Scalable AI Infrastructure Architecture25.9.2026 16:00:00 EEST | Press release
NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), the intelligent data infrastructure company, today announced its intent to acquire PEAK:AIO, a pioneer in next-generation metadata architecture and high-performance parallel file systems. The planned acquisition is expected to accelerate NetApp's AI infrastructure roadmap by augmenting metadata services and parallel namespace innovation designed to help AI clouds scale shared storage alongside growing GPU clusters. As AI becomes embedded in every enterprise workload, organizations are confronting a new challenge: traditional storage architectures were not designed for the unprecedented scale, concurrency, and performance requirements of AI factories, AI clouds, and next-generation data-intensive applications. NetApp is building an architecture that disaggregates metadata from data and enables metadata services to scale independently, creating a foundation for AI infrastructure capable of supporting trillions of files, exabyte-scale environments, and massively pa
MultiBank Group Secures Two Awards at Forex Expo Dubai 202625.9.2026 15:57:00 EEST | Press release
MultiBank Group, one of the world’s largest financial derivatives institutions, received two awards during its participation at Forex Expo Dubai 2026, held on 22 and 23 September at Dubai World Trade Centre. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260925539591/en/ MultiBank Group was named “Best Global Institutional Financial Ecosystem of the Year” and received the award for “Excellence in Global Financial Markets Innovation and Community Impact.” The Group was named “Best Global Institutional Financial Ecosystem of the Year” and received the award for “Excellence in Global Financial Markets Innovation and Community Impact.” The first award recognised the strength and breadth of MultiBank Group’s global institutional offering, which brings together trading, liquidity, technology, infrastructure, execution, market access and tailored client solutions within an integrated financial ecosystem. The second award acknowledg
Croma-Pharma Introduces saypha ® volume prime Lidocaine25.9.2026 15:04:00 EEST | Press release
Croma-Pharma introduces saypha® volume prime Lidocaine, a cross-linked hyaluronic acid dermal filler that replaces saypha® volume Lidocaine within the company's saypha® portfolio. The new product offers physicians a more versatile solution with expanded indications for both midface volumization and nasolabial folds, backed by strong clinical data. 1,2 saypha® volume prime Lidocaine demonstrated non-inferiority to comparatora in a randomized, subject- and evaluator-blinded, controlled, non-inferiority multicenter, parallel group comparison study with almost 500 patients.2 In the clinical evaluation, a high patient satisfaction highlights improved midface fullness, smoothness and contour, consistent with a rheologic profile designed to provide volumization in the mobile midface.b,2 With saypha® volume prime Lidocaine, Croma-Pharma further strengthens its product range, reflecting the company's long-standing commitment to scientific excellence and continuous product innovation, and provid
Abacus Global Management Completes Landmark $400 Million Securitization25.9.2026 15:00:00 EEST | Press release
Abacus Global Management, Inc. (“Abacus” or the “Company”) (NYSE: ABX), a financial services company specializing in alternative asset management, with a focus on longevity-based assets and personalized financial planning, today announced the closing of a dual-tranche securitization collateralized by a diversified portfolio of life insurance policies. The total structure is valued at over $400 million including the Class A and Class B notes and the residual interest. The notes have received an investment-grade rating from a third-party rating agency. The offering was oversubscribed and was upsized in response to investor demand. Abacus expects to use the net proceeds from the transaction to support continued policy origination and fund general corporate purposes. More fundamentally, this transaction advances the growth of the Company's asset management business. In the transaction, a special-purchase vehicle issued investment-grade notes backed by a pool of policies, which the Company
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom