Solar-powered ironing cart among 15 finalists of Prince William's Earthshot prize

Duke of Cambridge hails innovative solutions to 'repair' planet

Founded in 2020 by the UK's Prince William, the Earthshot Prize claims to be 'the most prestigious global environment prize in history' and will award £50m ($68m) over 10 years. Finalist in the Protect and Restore Nature category – Pole Pole Foundation, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. All photos: The Earthshot Prize

Finalist in the Protect and Restore Nature category – The Republic of Costa Rica.

Earthshot Prize organisers say the competition is designed to incentivise change and help repair our planet over the next 10 years. Finalist in the Clean our Air category – Vinisha Umashankar, from India.

Finalist in the Protect and Restore Nature category – Restor, from Switzerland. Pictured is founder Dr Thomas Crowther.

Finalist in the Clean our Air category – The Blue Map App, from China. Pictured is app creator Ma Jun.

Finalist in the Clean our Air category – Takachar, in India. Pictured is co-founder and chief executive CEO Vidyut Mohan.

Finalist in the Revive our Oceans category – Coral vita, in the Bahamas. Pictured are co-founders Gator Halpern and Sam Teicher.

Finalist in the Revive our Oceans category – Living Seawalls, in Australia. Dr Maria Vozzo from the Living Seawalls team conducts a biodiversity count on a series of the ‘habitat tiles’.

Finalist in the Revive our Oceans category – Pristine Seas, USA. Pictured is founder Dr Enric Sala.

Finalist in the Build a Waste-free World category – The City of Milan Food Waste Hubs.

Finalist in the Build a Waste-free World category – Sanergy, in Kenya. Pictured is Sanergy co-founder David Auerbach.

Finalist in the Build a Waste-free World category – WOTA BOX, from Japan. Pictured is WOTA BOX chief executive Yosuke Maeda.

Finalist in the Fix our Climate category – Enapter’s AEM Electrolyser, in Thailand, Germany, and Italy. Pictured is Enapter co-founder Vaitea Cowan.

Finalist in the Fix our Climate category – Reeddi Capsules, in Nigeria. Pictured is Reeddi founder and chief executive Olugbenga Olubanjo.

Finalist in the Fix our Climate category - SOLshare's SOLbazaar, in Bangladesh. Pictured is SOLshare co-founder and chief executive Dr Sebastian Groh.

An Indian teenager who designed a solar-powered ironing cart is among 15 finalists of the Earthshot Prize competition which seeks to find innovative solutions to environmental challenges.

Prince William announced the “amazing” entries on Friday, saying they should fill the world with “optimism and hope”.

He launched the ambitious environmental prize to make a “positive personal” contribution in the fight against climate change, taking his inspiration from John F Kennedy’s Moonshot project which advanced mankind’s achievements.

The Duke of Cambridge hopes efforts to recognise new ideas, practices and inventions will help “repair” the planet.

Other entrants include the nation of Costa Rica, which has pioneered a project paying local citizens to restore natural ecosystems, and a Chinese app that allows its citizens to hold polluters to account.

The Pole Pole Foundation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a community-led project to protect gorillas, was also nominated, as well as the City of Milan Food Waste Hubs in Italy, which seek to cut waste while tackling hunger.

There are no UK finalists but organisers believe home-grown talent will feature in the award in future years.

On Thursday, Prince William revealed his thinking behind establishing the ambitious prize.

He said he challenged himself to make a “positive personal” contribution in the fight against climate change so he could look his “children in the eye” and say he had done his “bit”.

In his introduction to the official Earthshot book, the duke said he wanted his environmental prize — which has a £50 million ($69m) pot — to recapture the “human ingenuity, purpose and optimism” associated with John F Kennedy’s Moonshot challenge.

Jason Knauf, chief executive of Prince William’s Royal Foundation, said: “The challenge the duke set himself was, what is the maximum positive personal contribution I can make in the next 10 years in the fight against climate change?

“What am I going to do in the next decade that means I can look my children in the eye and say that I did my bit? Every aspect of the prize bears the stamp of his contribution.”

In his introduction to Earthshot: How To Save Our Planet, due to be released this month, the duke says about his inspiration: “I wanted to recapture Kennedy’s Moonshot spirit of human ingenuity, purpose and optimism, and turn it with laser-sharp focus and urgency on to the most pressing challenge of our time — repairing our planet.”

Prince William spent two years working on the project with his Royal Foundation and the seeds of the idea were sowed during a visit to Namibia, Tanzania and Kenya in autumn 2018, when he met frontline conservation workers and those from local communities.

In the introduction, he says the crucial moment was in Namibia, when he made an early morning trip to try to catch a glimpse of a black rhino.

“The rich wildlife that I saw thriving on that visit struck a real chord. The community conservancy model is a prime example of how a simple, positive solution can have wide-reaching benefits for both humans and nature.

“Most importantly of all, it is a success story that can be replicated and scaled. I wanted to find a way to bottle that innovation and community spirit and mass-produce it globally.”

The duke said he saw his ambitious project as a means to turn around pessimism about the planet’s future, as he believed at the time there was “a real risk that people would switch off, that they would feel so despondent, so fearful and so powerless”.

He added: “I started thinking about what to do to change the equation to something else: urgency [plus] optimism [equals] action. The most famous example of using optimism to rise to a great challenge is the Moonshot.”

The prize is likely to be seen as Prince William’s career-defining project, like his father’s Prince’s Trust or grandfather’s Duke of Edinburgh Award programme, and reflects his growing confidence.

Every year from 2021 until the end of the decade, winners in five categories will each receive £1 million after being picked by a judging panel consisting of the duke and leading societal figures.

The Earthshot Prize takes its inspiration from the Apollo Moon landings, nicknamed Moonshot, which helped advance mankind’s technological achievements, and features five Earthshot categories which, organisers say, if achieved by 2030, would improve life for all.

The £1 million prize money will support environmental and conservation projects agreed to with the winners, who could be individual people, a group of scientists or activists, businesses, governments and even a city or country.

They will be recognised for new ideas, technologies, policies or solutions which tackle one of the five Earthshots: protect and restore nature, clean the air, revive the oceans, build a waste-free world and fix the climate.