By james art Dubbed William’s “Super Bowl” moment, the awards show, which recognizes environmental solutions to “fix” the planet, will be broadcast to a potential African audience of millions and projected online.
On Monday, the crown prince will begin a four-day visit to South Africa, dubbed Earthshot Week, which will showcase young African conservationists and include a meeting with the country’s Prime Minister Cyril Ramaphosa.
William will also deliver what Kensington Palace described as a landmark speech about nature, the environment and his support for wildlife rangers, at the start of a two-day summit for United for Wildlife, his umbrella organization that fights illegal poaching. animal trafficking.
Hannah Jones, CEO of the Earthshot Prize, said Earthshot Week is “dedicated to celebrating environmental innovation, accelerating solutions to scale and inspiring young people to put their time and talents to work to fix the planet one solution at a time; this represents more than a year and a half of work on the continent with our partners and stakeholders.”
She added: “Unlike most awards, we don’t reward people for what they have already achieved, we reward for the future potential of their decisions.
“And we don’t stop there, since our inception in 2021 we have built a network of over 500 organizations and partners, all dedicated to finding and sustaining solutions.”
The ceremony will be held on Wednesday in a multi-use dome that has been used for a number of events, with around 600 jobs created or working on the structure.
Earthshot’s green carpet has been a constant since William first hosted the awards ceremony three years ago in London, and the 2,000 guests are expected to wear sustainable clothing, whether made from recycled materials or pre-owned, when they walk the famous aisle.
Finalists from countries including France, Ghana, Indonesia and Nepal are competing for a £1m prize, awarded to each winner in five categories, with the money earmarked to develop their ideas.
The five categories or Earthshots are: protecting and restoring nature; cleans our air; revive our oceans; build a world without waste; and fix our climate.
The initiative was inspired by former US President John F. Kennedy’s Project Moonshot, which challenged scientists to put an astronaut on the moon and return him safely – and helped advance technology in the process.
Among the finalists in the Building a World Without Waste category is Keep It Cool, a Kenya-based company using solar-powered cooling to help reduce farmers’ crop waste.
Our Climate Fix category includes the American company Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems, which converts excess heat produced during the production of steel or cement into electricity.
UK start-up NatureMetrics, a finalist in nature protection and restoration, uses ecological DNA technology to identify species populations and report on environmental and conservation impacts.
Previous Earthshot finalists and winners are negotiating partnerships with British Airways to integrate their innovations with the company’s supply chain.
Notpla, which makes food packaging based on seaweed, is one of the companies, along with Enso, a start-up that makes more efficient, low-emission tires for electric vehicles.