The Commonwealth Secretary-General has welcomed the launch today by His Royal Highness The Duke of Cambridge of the Earthshot Prize.
The Commonwealth Secretary-General has welcomed the launch today by His Royal Highness The Duke of Cambridge of the Earthshot Prize.
Worldwide action
This prestigious set of global awards is designed to incentivise a decade of worldwide action, rooted in science, in five critical areas linked to the environment.
Every year from 2021 until 2030, Prince William, alongside The Earthshot Prize Council, will award a £1 million prize to each of five winners, following a rigorous selection process.
Winners can be individuals, teams, companies, cities and even countries, whose solutions or projects have generated the greatest impact on the following goals:
- Protect and Restore Nature
- Clean our Air
- Revive our Oceans
- Build a Waste-Free World
- Fix our Climate
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Implementation of innovative approaches
The Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland said: “We wholeheartedly welcome and are pleased as the Commonwealth family to be associated with this imaginative initiative. The Earthshot Prize will help to highlight and encourage implementation of innovative approaches, which, thanks to human ingenuity, offer immense opportunities to bring about positive change.
“The environmental challenges which face us are urgent and can at times seem daunting, particularly the existential threat of climate change. Yet I am full of hope that among the 54 countries of the Commonwealth, and more widely, there are remarkable examples of innovation, leadership and collaboration which can stimulate and facilitate the urgent transformations needed to regenerate and restore the balance of the ecosystems on which we depend and share with all forms of life on our planet.”
With a combined population of 2.4 billion, 60 per cent of whom under the age of 30, the Commonwealth membership includes 25 small island developing states as well as some of the world’s least developed countries. The Commonwealth Innovation Hub captures some of the ground-breaking work being carried out in the various regions to tackle key sustainability issues.
Solutions from across the world
Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s Moonshot, which united millions of people around an organising goal to put man on the moon, The Earthshot Prize outlines five ‘Earthshots’ - simple but ambitious goals for the planet that must be addressed together.
The awards are an opportunity to generate new ways of thinking, as well as highlight transformative technologies, systems, policies and solutions from across the world.
Nominations will open on 1st November, with an annual global awards ceremony to be held in a different city each year, starting with London in autumn 2021.
To find out more, visit www.earthshotprize.org
