On Thursday 8th September 2020, The Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge launched The Earthshot Prize. This new global reward scheme, inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s Moonshot, aims to tackle some of the world’s biggest environmental problems through positively incentivising people around the world to bring about change. The target is 2030, by which The Earthshot Prize will have awarded £50 million in prize money to at least 50 different solutions created by any individual, team or collaboration that have a positive effect on the environment and global living standards for generations to come.

Neutralizing waste

Representing 1 of 5 parts of the prize, to ‘Build a waste-free world’ strives to eliminate waste of any kind replicating nature in the sense that ‘the leftovers of one process become the raw materials of the next’. The way the earth’s population goes about using its resources currently is not sustainable for the future so this initiative is a call to arms to any individual, organisation, city or country to generate creative and collaborative ideas using new technologies, ways of thinking, policies and solutions. It’s important to do so in a way that will repair the planet as well as preserving it forever. All the goals are in line with internationally recognised and scientifically agreed targets including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals among others.

The 5 simple, but ambitious Earthshots are:

  • Protect & restore nature
  • Clean our air
  • Revive our oceans
  • Build a waste-free world
  • Fix our climate

World-wide backing

The Earthshot Prize has the backing of a huge variety of global partners including Sir David Attenborough, WRAP, WWF, Greenpeace, UN Environment Programme and many others. As well as this, The Royal Foundation has assembled ‘The Earthshot Prize Council’ which is comprised of a host of different influencial environmentalists from around the world who’s job it will be to, each year, award The Earthshot Prize to 5 winners, 1 for every Earthshot. The prizes will be awarded to those that offer the best contributions towards achieving the 5 goals.

The video below explains more about how The Earthshot Prize endeavors to build a waste-free world: