It has been announced that The Prince of Wales is taking the Earthshot Prize to Singapore later this year.
The awards ceremony in Southeast Asia will see another five winners chosen, who will be awarded £1 million to help ‘scale their environmental solutions’ to tackle the climate emergency.
The Earthshot Prize was spearheaded by Prince William, The Duke of Cambridge (BBC Studios/James Watkins)
Speaking about the new country becoming a host for the Earthshot Prize, Prince William said: ‘The Earthshot Prize is all about showing the world that solutions to some of the biggest environmental challenges we face are out there and need to be scaled.
‘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.’
Earthshot was launched in 2019 and is ‘an ambitious set of challenges to inspire a decade of action to repair the planet’ and named following the moon landings, which was a decade-long plan called Moonshot.
The five ‘Earthshots’ are based around five goals to repair our planet: Protect and Restore Nature, Clean our Air, Revive our Oceans, Build a Waste-free World and Fix our Climate.
Introducing #EarthshotSingapore2023 🇸🇬
We are so excited to be heading to Southeast Asia this November for our third annual awards ceremony, taking place during the first ever #EarthshotWeek
✨Find out more: https://t.co/CS9SlithSx pic.twitter.com/fqjMC57ZyK
— The Earthshot Prize (@EarthshotPrize) May 14, 2023
Now making its mark in a third continent, Southeast Asia was chosen for a number of reasons: it has emerged as a hub of innovation for start-ups and tech companies, where Singapore is combining capital and human ingenuity to tackle the toughest environmental challenges.
The continent’s increasing rising sea levels and extreme weather has seen local entrepreneurs and inventors push for an increase in sustainable and innovative solutions to combat the effects of climate change.
Singapore has a rich biodiversity, where its commitment to sustainability extends to construction too with green building regulations.
The continent also has one of the world’s most biologically diverse ecosystems, with the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra, coral reefs of the Philippines and Mekong River system.
For the first time in the history of the awards, there will also be a series of events as part of ‘Earthshot Week’.
Prince William and Kate, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, arriving at the Earthshot Prize Awards Ceremony, held at Alexandra Palace.
Global leaders, businesses and investors will meet in Singapore to explore opportunities with prize winners and finalists to understand better how these solutions and projects could support their communities and the wider world.
This year, The Earthshot Prize will be supported by partners including Temasek Trust, Temasek, GenZero and Conservation International. The partners will play a crucial role in ensuring a successful series of engagements in the lead-up to, and during, the awards ceremony and ‘Earthshot Week’.
In 2021, the Awards were hosted in London and last year Prince William took his Earthshot Prize to Boston in the US.
More than 1.5 million people benefiting directly from the 2021 finalists’ solutions. This includes over 7,000 hectares of land and almost 2.1 million hectares of ocean being protected or restored, while over 35,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions have been reduced, avoided or sequestered.
