The search for the next winners of The Earthshot Prize 2024 has begun!
The Commonwealth Blue Charter programme is proud to be an Official Nominator for the prestigious Earthshot Prize, the global environmental awards launched by HRH Prince William in 2020. The prize aims to find and scale the most innovative solutions that will help repair our planet this decade.
As an Official Nominator, we are part of a global community invited to submit nominations, selected for our ability to identify the most impactful solutions across all sectors.
Five Earthshots*
The Earthshot Prize categories constitute five simple but ambitious goals which, if achieved by 2030, will improve life for us all, including generations to come. These are:
- Protect and Restore Nature
- Clean our Air
- Revive our Oceans
- Build a Waste-Free World
- Fix our Climate
*The Commonwealth Secretariat’s Blue Charter team will be nominating individuals, communities, businesses and organisations whose solutions make the most progress towards achieving Earthshot 3: Revive our Oceans.
Prizes
There will be three finalists and one winner for each Earthshot. Each of the five winners will be awarded £1 million, and all 15 finalists will enter The Earthshot Fellowship Programme for a year of dedicated support.
Finalists and winners are given an incredible platform to amplify their work, as well as tailored support from The Earthshot Prize and our network of NGOs, businesses, governments, funders and expert mentors.
What we look for
The Earthshot Prize will consider solutions which make tangible progress towards one of the five Earthshots. Particular focus is placed on nominees with potential for global impact, that represent diversity and are mature enough to rapidly scale, ensuring the solutions presented as finalists and winners will make a vital difference over the next 3-5 years.
Nominations should be:
- beyond idea stage
- have tested their solution in-field or with target audiences, and
- are at a ‘tipping point’ for scaling their impact within the next five years.
Selection criteria
Nominations will be selected against 15 priority areas of interest, five cross-cutting enabling approaches, and four key filters that could significantly accelerate impact.
15 priority areas
These fifteen areas of interest are all areas where there is the potential to see damaging and unsustainable practices rapidly replaced with high impact solutions. Whilst focus of The Earthshot Prize is on these areas, any entry outside this will also be accepted as long as it has the potential for global impact in the next few years.
Protect and restore nature
- Protecting areas of high biodiversity such as forests, wetland, peatlands and wildlife corridors
- Restoring damaged ecosystems
- Feeding people while protecting nature
Clean our air
- Engaging citizens in data collection and clean air policies
- Preventing the burning of fields, forests and waste
- Transitioning to clean transportation for all
Revive our oceans
- Protecting and restoring coastal ecosystems
- Replenishing fish populations
- Reducing demand for fishmeal
Build a waste-free world
- Reducing food loss from farm-to-fork
- Phasing out single-use and non-recycled plastics
- High-value circularity in fashion and electronics
Fix our climate
- Creating an equitable clean energy future
- Addressing non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions
- Decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors
Enablers
Enabling approaches inspire our nominators and nominees when searching for game-changing innovations. These include:
- Solutions that use technology, AI or data to enable transformative change
- Solutions that create or leverage nature and carbon markets, novel financial mechanisms and essential legal solutions
- Solutions led and informed by indigenous and local communities
- Solutions that promote shared economic opportunity
- Solutions that enable policy change
Filters
When it comes to selecting the 15 finalists from the 1000+ nominations received each year by The Earthshot Prize, a thorough process is in place to identify the best submissions, using the following filters:
- Potential for global impact
Finalists will have the potential to be relevant on a global level by 2030. They must clearly articulate their impact to date, and their potential to make a difference in the future based on one or more of our shortlisted environmental and social metrics.
- Diversity of solution types
Solutions can come from any country or sector in the world. Nominees could be a not-for-profit or for-profit organisation, a local or national Government, a partnership, or a team. Particular emphasis is placed on geographic representation, gender, and indigenous representation.
- Stage of solutions
Finalists will have solutions that can be scaled or replicated quickly through financial, communications or organisational support. Solutions will be well developed beyond the idea stage, have made significant progress with their solution, and need support to be scaled beyond financial support alone.
- Organisational foundations
The Earthshot Prize seeks finalists that are mature enough to maximise the support they receive. This will be evaluated based on the foundations they already have in place, accounting for the quality of the leadership team, their commitment to inclusion and their organisational maturity.
For more details about what the Earthshot Prize looks for in their nominees, please read the new 2023 Roadmap.
Submit a nomination for The Earthshot Prize 2024
If you have an ocean-related solution that is inspiring, inclusive and impactful, please fill in this form to be considered for nomination by the Commonwealth Blue Charter, for Earthshot 3: Revive our Oceans.
After you have submitted your information, the Commonwealth Blue Charter team will review your completed form, conduct rigorous due diligence and will notify you if selected for nomination. Please note that completion of this survey does not guarantee nomination by the Commonwealth Blue Charter.
Should you be selected, you will receive a link from The Earthshot Prize to provide further details about your solution.
For more information, please contact the Commonwealth Blue Charter team at the Commonwealth Secretariat via: [email protected] with a clearly labelled subject line 'Earthshot Prize 2023 query'.
Deadline
The deadline for nominations for The Earthshot Prize 2024 is now closed.
Find out more about The Earthshot Prize: www.earthshotprize.org
Media contact
- Josephine Latu-Sanft Senior Communications Officer, Communications Division, Commonwealth Secretariat
- +44 20 7747 6476 | E-mail
