The Earthshot Prize, an initiative started by Prince William and The Royal Foundation, will be hosting its fourth award ceremony in Cape Town in November 2024. Markedly, this will be the first time that South Africa will be hosting this event, and Prince William is planning to attend.

What is The Earthshot Prize?

With an increasing emphasis on the importance of protecting the environment, The Royal Foundation and Prince William launched The Earthshot Prize. It is a project that Prince William is very passionate about. Markedly, it is the most prestigious global prize for the environment in history.

The initiative aims to raise awareness surrounding environmental issues, and more importantly, to bring about change. As stated by The Royal Foundation, ‘the prize is about much more than awarding achievement – it is a decade of action to convene the environmental world with funders, businesses and individuals to maximise impact and take solutions to scale, to celebrate the people and places driving change; and to inspire people all over the world to work together to repair the planet’.

How does the council award the prizes?

Prizes are awarded to a wide range of individuals, teams, or collaborations whose workable solutions make a substantial contribution to the current environmental crisis. Finalists include scientists, activists, economists, community projects, etc.

Following are the five categories across which prizes are awarded:

• Protect and Restore
• Clean our Air
• Revive our Oceans
• Build a Waste-Free World
• Fix our Climate

Cape Town to welcome Prince William

Award ceremonies take place in different cities across the world each year. Every year, 15 finalists are chosen and consequently, five winners are announced. This year’s award ceremony will take place in Cape Town on Wednesday, 6 November 2024.

As reported by SABC News, Cape Town is to welcome Prince William when he attends the event:

This year’s finalists

Prince William and his fellow members of the Earthshot Prize Council selected the 2024 finalists from nearly 2 500 nominees submitted by the Prize’s network of more than 420 nominators from 75 countries.

Following is a video in which Prince William announces this year’s finalists:

As reported by capetownetc, the 15 finalists will come together in Cape Town from across six continents and include several firsts, including the first finalists from France, Ghana, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, and also Nepal.