During his two-day visit to the New York, Prince William has been promoting his Earthshot Prize, ITV News’ Royal Editor Chris Ship reports
The Prince of Wales has unveiled 15 finalists – including two from the UK – for this year’s prize at the second ever Earthshot Innovation Summit.
William announced the 15 innovators from six continents who have been selected out of over 1,100 nominees at an event held alongside the UN General Assembly in New York City.
Each of the finalists will be in the running to receive one of the five £1 million prizes awarded at the third-annual Earthshot Prize awards ceremony in Singapore later this year.
Prince of Wales wades into New York river
Founded by Prince William in 2020, The Earthshot Prize aims to discover and help scale the world’s most innovative climate and environmental solutions to protect and restore our planet.
The project is centered around five ‘Earthshots’ – simple but aspirational goals to ensure communities, oceans, and ecosystems thrive together in harmony for generations to come.
The Earthshots are Protect & Restore Nature, Clean Our Air, Revive Our Oceans, Build A Wast-free World, and Fix Our Climate.
In addition to their eligibility for the £1 million prize, all finalists will receive mentorship, resources, and technical support from The Earthshot Prize Fellowship Programme, a year-long programme for each cohort of 15 finalists to accelerate the growth of their creations.
The Earthshot Prize to Protect and Restore Nature finalists 2023:
1. Acción Andina, Peru: Acción Andina is a grassroots, community-based initiativeworking across South America to protect native high Andean forest ecosystems for theirinvaluable benefits to nature and millions of people in the region.
2. Freetown the Tree Town, Sierra Leone: Combining community stewardship anddigital tools, the City of Freetown’s initiative, Freetown the Tree Town, is galvanising agrassroots movement for tree preservation in Sierra Leone’s capital.
3. Belterra, Brazil: Belterra works with smallholder farmers in Brazil to restore foreststhrough regenerative agricultural practices and to create market incentives forsustainably grown crops.
The Earthshot Prize to Clean Our Air finalists 2023:
1. Polish Smog Alert, Poland: One of the world’s most effective conservation campaigngroups, Polish Smog Alert, helps secure policy change and air quality improvementsacross Poland and has goals to do the same across Central and Eastern Europe.
2. ENSO, UK: ENSO creates tyres specially designed for electric vehicles that are moresustainable and reduce harmful tyre pollution, leading to cleaner air for everyone.
3. GRST, Hong Kong: With the development of a new way to build and recycle vitallithium-ion batteries, GRST’s solution offers a pathway to make the electric cars of thefuture even cleaner.
The Earthshot Prize to Revive Our Oceans finalists 2023:
1. Abalobi, South Africa: Using easy-to-scale technology, Abalobi works with smallfishing communities to record their catch data and to ensure a fair and improvedlivelihood from sustainable fishing.
2. Coastal 500, Global (US HQ): A global network of mayors and local governmentleaders, Coastal 500 is restoring ocean habitats and advocating for coastal protectioninternationally.
3. WildAid Marine Programme, Global (US HQ): Global non-profit organisationWildAid uses partnership building and knowledge sharing to address the world’s oceanconservation needs.
The Earthshot Prize to Build a Waste-Free World finalists 2023:
1. S4S Technologies, India: S4S Technologies’ solar-powered dryers and processingequipment to combat food waste, enables small-hold farmers to preserve crops and turnproduce that might otherwise go to waste into valuable products.
2. Circ Inc., US: US based company Circ has created a ground-breaking solution to enablethe recycling of polycotton fabrics, which make up half of all textile waste.
3. Colorifix, UK: Colorifix uses DNA sequencing and nature’s own colours to createsustainable dyes that reduce the fashion industry’s use of water and harmful chemicals.
The Earthshot Prize to Fix Our Climate finalists 2023:
1. Sea Forest, Australia: Sea Forest’s revolutionary seaweed-based livestock feeddrastically reduces the planet-warming methane emissions from cattle and sheep, andsupports sustainable farming and healthy marine ecosystems.
2. Aquacycl, US: Using microbial technology, Aquacycl are making the treatment ofindustrial wastewater more accessible, more efficient, and less polluting.
3. Boomitra, Global (US HQ): Boomitra are removing emissions and boosting farmerprofits by incentivising land restoration through a verified carbon-credit marketplace.