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The third annual award ceremony for Prince William's global environmental prize is slated to be held in Singapore on Nov. 7.
Five winners will be selected to receive a hefty £1 million (S$1.67 million) each to scale up their environmental solutions.
What is the Earthshot Prize?
The Earthshot Prize is an environmental prize founded by Prince William and UK-based charity The Royal Foundation in 2020.
Inspired by former U.S. president John F. Kennedy's Moonshot, which made the commitment of landing a man on the moon, Earthshot aims to "discover, accelerate and scale ground-breaking solutions to repair and regenerate the planet" by 2030.
The challenge has laid out five simple and ambitious goals, termed "Earthshots", which are:
- Protect and Restore Nature
- Clean Our Air
- Revive Our Oceans
- Build a Waste-Free World
- Fix Our Climate
Over 10 years, 50 winners will be offered support to help repair the Earth.
Additionally, the Earthshot Prize works in partnership with the Global Alliance Founding Partners, a group comprising leading global organisations and philantrophists, to support the scaling of the solutions discovered and selected each year.
The ceremony held in Singapore will see five winners from each Earthshot category awarded with £1 million to help accelerate their solutions.
The finalists will be unveiled in the second half of 2023.
A series of events will take place in conjunction with Earthshot Week, which will see global leaders, businesses and investors convening in Singapore to explore opportunities with the winners and finalists.
There will also be performances by world-renowned musicians and artists.
Members of the public will be invited to experience "local activations" on the Earthshot solutions presented this year.
Hosted in Singapore
According to The Earthshot Prize's press release, Southeast Asia is one of the regions in the world most affected by climate change.
However, it is also a hub for many to come together to commit to restoring the planet, and Singapore is considered to be the "gateway to Southeast Asia".
Prince William shared:
“The Earthshot Prize is all about showing the world that solutions to some of the biggest environmental challenges we face are out there. After two years of discovering impactful ideas and innovations, I am delighted that The Earthshot Prize is travelling to Singapore, where the ground-breaking solutions of our 2023 Finalists will be celebrated.”
Partnering The Earthshot Prize are Temasek Trust, Temasek, American environmental non-profit Conservation International, and GenZero, an investment platform company founded by Temasek which focuses on accelerating decarbonisation globally.
Past winners
The Earthshot Prize shared that the solutions innovated by the inaugural 2021 finalists' have directly benefitted more than 1.5 million people, protecting and restoring over 7,000 hectares of land and approximately 2.1 million hectares of ocean.
Additionally, over 35,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions have been avoided, reduced or sequestered.
Some of the 2021 winners include projects on restoring coral reefs in the Bahamas by growing coral fragments 50 times faster than in nature.
Meanwhile, 2022's winning projects include storing carbon dioxide in rock in Oman, and the creation of a biodegradable seaweed-based packaging to store liquids and f0od.
Judges on the 2022 panel included Sir David Attenborough, actress Cate Blanchett, musician Shakira, and Christiana Figueres, former head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Top images via earthshotprize/ Instagram and YouTube.