Global corporations supporting Prince William’s Earthshot Prize announced
Prince William’s Earthshot Prize has announced the corporate giants who will support ideas submitted by finalists of the environmental competition.
Hitachi, Microsoft and the Ink Group, which owns and operates most Ikea stores, are among 14 global businesses helping to “scale up” the ideas aiming to tackle the climate crisis.
Other companies include Arup, Bloomberg, Deloitte, Herbert Smith Freehills, The Multichoice Group, Natura&Co, Safaricom, Unilever, Vodacom, and Walmart.
The inaugural 15 finalists of the competition, launched by the Duke of Cambridge last autumn with his Royal Foundation, will be revealed later this month.
The £50m environmental competition aims to recognise solutions, ideas and technologies that “repair the planet”. It takes inspiration from the Apollo moon landings, nicknamed “Moonshot”, which helped advance mankind’s technological achievements.
Earthshot includes five categories which are described as “simple but ambitious goals for our planet which if achieved by 2030 will improve life for us all, for generations to come”.
The categories, called “Earthshots”, aim to “protect and restore nature”, “clean our air”, “revive our oceans”, “build a waste-free world” and “fix our climate”.
Every year from 2021 until the end of the decade, winners of the five Earthshots will receive £1m, after being chosen by a judging panel.
Indra Nooyi, a member of the judging panel and former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, said: “Sustainability is fundamental to how business is conducted.
“Collaboration with the private sector is critical in order to propel sustainable environmental innovation. These companies can accelerate our progress towards a more sustainable future with their global reach and impact.
“By leveraging their expertise, size and scale, they can supercharge the adoption of solutions created by our Earthshot Prize finalists and winners, solutions that will ultimately improve lives around the world and restore our planet.”
The winners of the competition will be announced at an awards ceremony in London on 17 October. William said the ceremony will “be a truly global event, connecting people from all over the world to celebrate these inspiring leaders and their innovations to solve the world’s greatest environmental challenges”.
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