(Bloomberg) -- A Kenyan company combating food waste with refrigerated boxes and a British startup that samples environmental DNA to measure biodiversity are among the 15 finalists for the Earthshot Prize, an annual award from an organization led by Prince William that recognizes emerging solutions to the environmental crisis.
A ceremony to reveal this year’s crop of contenders for £1 million ($1.3 million) awards from Earthshot opened a day of high-profile climate events on Tuesday, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York and alongside dozens of gatherings for Climate Week NYC. The five winners will be selected in November at an event in Cape Town, South Africa, from categories that include cleaning the air and building a carbon-neutral economy.
This marks the fourth year of the Earthshot Prize, and the stakes of averting catastrophe have never been clearer. Wildfires, record-breaking heat waves and other climate change-fueled extreme weather have battered communities around the world. This year is also on track to be the hottest ever recorded, besting the mark set in 2023.
“We do not have a moment to waste,” actor and climate activist Jane Fonda said in a recorded statement at the announcement ceremony. “Now is the time to show up with everything we have, and that’s exactly what the Earthshot Prize is all about.”
The finalists include Kenyan refrigeration company Keep IT Cool, UK-based biodiversity startup NatureMetrics (also recognized with a BloombergNEF Pioneers award for startups working on breakthrough technology earlier this year), and Equatic, a company that removes carbon from the air and creates clean hydrogen using seawater.
Not all of the finalists are emerging companies. One Earthshot contender, the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, is a group of nearly 120 countries working to protect 30% of the world’s land and oceans by 2030. Other initiatives up for the Earthshot Prize focus on replacing plastics with plant-based materials, turning industrial waste heat into electricity and protecting an 86 million-acre area of the Amazon rainforest.
“The world wants to be more sustainable. The question is how fast we’re going to get there,” Mark Carney, United Nations special envoy for climate action and finance, said at the ceremony. “The best innovators, entrepreneurs, businesses are getting out in front of that.”
The finalist announcement took place at Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel, where a group of world leaders, business executives and cultural figures gathered for a day of climate events. Speakers included Jacinda Ardern, former prime minister of New Zealand and an Earthshot trustee, and José Andrés, celebrity chef and member of the group that picks winners.
Later on Tuesday at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum, President Joe Biden is set to deliver a speech highlighting US progress in confronting climate change and lowering emissions. Additional events on Tuesday will bring together the outgoing and incoming leaders of the annual UN climate summit to assess the global progress of renewable energy, among other topics.
The Earthshot Prize was founded in 2020 by Prince William in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies and is backed by organizations including the Breakthrough Energy Foundation, Bezos Earth Fund and Jack Ma Foundation. (Michael Bloomberg is the majority owner Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, as well as the founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies.)
An advisory panel of experts in conservation, technology, finance and other areas reviews nominations each year and recommends finalists. Prince William and other prominent environmental advocates pick the winners. Among last year’s winners were lithium-battery recycler GRST and Acción Andina, a program focused on protecting Andean forest ecosystems.
“You have so much to offer us,” Ardern said of this year’s finalists. “So please keep going and maintain your optimism and your expectation that we should all do more.”
The funding and exposure that come with the award have buoyed past winners. Mukuru Clean Stoves saw sales of its less-polluting cook stoves jump after winning the 2022 prize, as co-founder Charlot Magayi said in an interview last year.
The money from last year’s prize also opened the door to larger-scale partnerships for the WildAid marine program to reduce illegal fishing, said Meaghan Brosnan, the group’s chief executive officer. She said publicity from Earthshot helped the nonprofit secure its largest-ever grant.
(Updates story throughout with news from the Earthshot Prize event.)
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