FIRST-EVER WINNERS OF PRINCE WILLIAM’S EARTHSHOT PRIZE ANNOUNCED

First-ever winners of Prince William’s Earthshot prize announced. The Earthshot Prize 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:

1. Protect and Restore Nature

This was won by The Republic of Costa Rica. The country, which had lost a lot of their trees through deforestation, but have now doubled the size of their forests. Its programme pays the people of Costa Rica to look after their environment through planting trees and restoring ecosystems.

2. Clean our Air

Social enterprise Takachar, run by Vidyut Mohan, won the prize for their machine that converts farm waste into useful fuels and fertiliser that can be reused or sold by farmers in India. This means that farmers do not need to burn the waste which causes lots of pollution.

3. Revive our Oceans

Two best friends in the Bahamas, Sam Teicher and Gator Halpern, have developed a way to quickly restore the world’s coral reefs which have been damaged by pollution. They have made special tanks that can grow coral 50 times faster than it would ordinarily grow in nature.

4. Build a Waste-Free World

The City of Milan in Italy have won the prize for collecting unused food in the city and giving it out for free to those in need.

5. Fix our Climate

Green technology group Enapter have developed an environmentally friendly way to create hydrogen by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is a clean fuel, but it is often created by burning fossil fuels.

The winners were chosen from 750 nominees.

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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