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Growing up in the Washington D.C. area, or what I’d like to call the land of lawyers and doctors – I used to think my creativity was futile and wouldn’t amount to much if I couldn’t help cure diseases or save the planet. However, the Earthshot Prize created by the Royal Foundation proves otherwise.
The Earthshot Prize is awarded to those who get creative with ideas on how to help the global predicament of climate change and the catastrophic effects humans are suffering because of it.
👉 How does the Earthshot Prize choose a winner, and how does it work overall to help encourage environmental solutions?
The Earthshot Prize was created by the Royal Foundation as an effort to discover and foster new solutions to help mend the planet throughout the next decade.
Some people are becoming preoccupied with the idea of living on Mars, but the Earthshot Prize strives to maintain hope that humans can continue to reside on Earth.
If people are making it probable to live on Mars one day, why should the future of living life on Earth be ruled out? The Earthshot Prize believes that life on Earth can remain a reality if we seek ample solutions born from creativity.
Have you ever heard of the term, “moonshot”? If you haven’t, it’s a term used to describe a goal that you think might never happen because it’s too extreme or “out of this world” to accomplish. The same meaning is depicted in the title for this environmentally savvy prize.
“Earthshot” illustrates the concept for some kind of Earthly goal that one does not think is possible. Hence, the term – “Earthshot Prize”. It’s known as one of the most prestigious environmental prizes – aimed to award people for the efforts to bring people together to save the Earth.
The Royal Foundation, the original creators of the Earthshot prize, is a charity program that originated through the work of the royals in Wales – hence the name, “The Royal Foundation”.
The projects in the Royal Foundation often center around conserving vital entities such as the environment, benefiting children, advocating for mental help, and assistance with emergency situations. Ultimately, the Royal Foundation encourages both businesses and people to conjoin their efforts to tackle the world’s most pressing problems together.
The Royal Foundation achieves this through the use of research, viable partnerships, and measuring their impact to lead to future improvement.
Currently, the Royal Foundation is led by the Prince and Princess of Wales.
The Earthshot Prize works in five steps: search, select, accelerate, award, and scale. There are five Earth shooters every year for the next decade.
Step one of the Earthshot Prize is to conduct a global search for five, “Earth shooters” – or five people who have come up with an innovative solution worthy of the Earthshot Prize.
The Earthshot Team searches the world for the best ideas, and observes how these aspirational plans have motivated groups and others in their society to proceed with environmentally friendly habits in their own daily lives.
👉 Anyone can be nominated for an Earthshot prize – no matter what sector their idea is for or what country they come from.
Candidates for the Earthshot prize can present their ideas for a non-profit organisation, investment, corporate company, academic institution, government-based organisation, or communal purposes. The most important value that should be illustrated by any Earth shooter is their unified mission to better the planet.
Nominations for the Earthshot prize are made through the help of the Global Alliance, which is a network of various organisations dedicated to improving the planet and hold the same values entailed by the Earthshot Prize itself.
The Global Alliance helps the Earthshot Prize committee seek the most influential and aspiring individuals with brilliant ideas to help maintain life on Earth.
The Earthshot Prize is becoming more popular with each following year – with 345 nominations from 80 countries around the world.
The final part of the search step is the screening process, used to ensure the validity of each potential candidate for the Earthshot Prize.
After the search step is completed, the Earthshot Prize committee selects the most innovative solutions to five “Earth shooters”. This is better known as the “select” step.
This is all done by the Earthshot Prize Council – which is an international team of influencers that share the same positive mindset for saving the planet as the rest of those involved in the Earthshot Prize.
👉 The selection process is done by determining the main interest of each Earth shooter, and how their idea will benefit society and the planet.
The Earthshot Prize doesn’t just award people for having good ideas, but actually helps them come to fruition. This is the third step of the Earthshot Prize process, known as the “accelerate” step.
Essentially, this is the part of the process where after being awarded for an excellent environmental idea, each of the five winners receive special expertise to help them finalise their idea.
After the winners have undergone this programme to manifest their ideas into reality, they are awarded a whopping £1 million to help facilitate their ideas into action – which is known as the fourth step.
Not only does this massive financial contribution help the winners bring about real change, but it provides them with an international platform to share their ideas being implemented into reality all over the world.
👉 The Earthshot Prize committee doesn’t believe that winning the Earthshot Prize marks the end and ultimate success – but rather serves as the starting point to facilitate true change.
The fifth and final step in the Earthshot Prize is to “scale”, or in other words, to help the Earthshot Prize winner’s thinking turn into a reality so that concrete action can be taken to create real environmental change.
Think of the scale step like the winner of a popular singing competition show like American Idol or The Voice – the winner isn’t just applauded for their singing skills, but they’re usually given a record deal so that they can continue to craft and share their talent with the world.
The same concept is exhibited in the last step of the Earthshot Prize.
The Earthshot Prize Council recognises that the global predicament of climate change isn’t going to get better just by coming up with good ideas, but by executing them.
Through the generous financial award and subsequent guidance to help Earthshot Prize winners turn their ideas into viable projects, the Earthshot Prize illustrates their most imperative goal and value: to help bring indispensable and intriguing environmental ideas to life.
Who are some of the people who have thrived with the help of the Earthshot Prize council, before?
Even though the Earthshot Prize only started two years ago back in 2020, the Earthshot Prize has already helped so many winners manifest their environmental visions into reality.
👉 The Earthshot Prize awards five different winners annually across five different categories: Protect and Restore Nature, Clean Our Air, Revive Our Oceans, Build a Waste-free World, and Fix our Climate.
The most recent winner of the Protect and Restore Nature category was awarded to the Republic of Costa Rica for their efforts and ideas to prevent further deforestation and the negative impact climate change has had on their indigienous communities.
The winner for the Clean Our Air category was Takachar in India, who have created a cost-effective piece of technology that can be attached to tractors in isolated farms to help reduce residues and ozone-depleting substances from polluting the atmosphere.
For the Revive Our Oceans category of the Earthshot Prize, the most recent winner was Coral Vita – which can grow coral on land that can be later replanted in oceans and revitalize dying ecosystems. This can ultimately help coral grow up to fifty times faster and help restore the biodiversity in oceans and prevent ocean-life from suffering the negative consequences of climate change.
The new winner of the Build a Waste-free World was Milan in Italy for their idea to mitigate food waste by collecting unused food from supermarkets and companies to give it to citizens that need it the most.
Finally, for the Fix our Climate category – the most recent winner was AEM Electrolyser, who have found a way to convert renewable energy into green hydrogen, which can then be used as an emission-free gas to power multivarious places and devices.
It’s conspicuous that the Earthshot Prize council has the ability to discover some amazing efforts to improve society and the planet that would otherwise go unnoticed!
These winners each received their £1 million financial supplement to jumpstart their environmental project, an Earthshot Prize medal, and the global, professional support to turn their ideas into real climate-change prevention projects.
In addition to the five prize winners, all of the finalists are given the same personalized support to create tangible environmental projects stemming from their initial ideas that got them nominated for the Earthshot Prize.
The best part about the Earthshot Prize is that it doesn’t just award people for their excellent ideas, but it helps them put their extraordinary thinking into action that could actually change the world in the midst of the fight against climate change.
👉 The Earthshot Prize knows that answers to our problems regarding climate change exist – it’s just a matter of finding them and doing what’s possible to make these great ideas into a reality.
Every year, the Earthshot Prize Council wants to give back to the world by giving exceptional ideas a chance to make a difference that would otherwise go unnoticed. The Earthshot Prize, while generous with their £1 million donation to help scale these ideas into the real world, recognises that it takes more than just money – but expert guidance to create something worthy of eliciting change.
The Earthshot Prize council has an abundant and wide-variety of resources to help the winners of the Earthshot Prize bring forth new, positive environmental action so that we can all stay put on planet Earth – mankind’s first and foremost home.
The Earth can live without people, but people can’t live without Earth. Mars or the moon may seem exotic for now, but there’s no reason to plan for plan B when there is no confirmed planet B.
It’s time we all make Planet A the priority it is, and the Earthshot Prize helps to make that priority a reality.
If reading this article about the Earthshot Prize by the Royal Foundation has made you interested in reducing your carbon emissions to further fight against climate change – Greenly can help you!
Greenly can help you make an environmental change for the better, starting with a carbon footprint assessment to know how much carbon emissions your company produces.
Click here to learn more about Greenly and how we can help you reduce your carbon footprint.
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