Ahead of the unveiling of the winners of the Earthshot Prize today (Wednesday), the promoters have unveiled new initiatives to reach children and young people and inspire the next generation to join the movement of fixing the planet.
  
The new programmes, designed to engage the next generation of climate innovators, are the Global Climate Accelerator Network, the Climate Youth Leadership Programme, and Project Slingshot, which will be launched in partnership with National Geographic.
  
The initiatives will give birth to a new global network, with 17 initial members that will foster collaboration between accelerators, incubators and other organisations around the world as they support early-stage start-ups to tackle the most pressing environmental challenges facing the world and scale their solutions.The network will expand over time to provide greater support to eco-innovators and their solutions.

To coincide with Earthshot Week, the prize brought together 120 young people from across Africa and Asia to launch the first Earthshot Week Climate Youth Leadership Programme. This cohort, all passionate about driving transformative change in climate action and sustainability, will develop vital skills in authentic leadership, storytelling, and networking over four impactful days.
   
“This is an invitation to young people everywhere to reclaim their future and unleash their time and talent to fix the planet, one solution at a time. At The Earthshot Prize, we believe in the power of climate creatives – the builders, creators, makers, doers – and we want to encourage every young person to dream of one day becoming an Earthshot winner. Because when they win, we all win,” according to Chief Executive Officer of Earthshot Prize, Hannah Jones.
 
MEANWHILE, as the Earthshot week kicked off, yesterday, in Cape Town, South Africa, the Earthshot Prize has revealed that the support galvanised for its alumni has reached £86 million in value, highlighting the prize’s impact and ability to accelerate game-changing environmental solutions to scale.
  
Founded by Prince William and incubated in the Royal Foundation in 2020 for a year before becoming an independent platform/organisation, the Earthshot Prize is a global environmental prize and platform designed to discover, accelerate and scale ground-breaking solutions to repair and regenerate the planet.
  
In Cape Town, Earthshot is exploring opportunities for partnership by focusing on key tipping points for scale that can hasten the path to change. These include Greening Fashion: Promoting next-generation materials; Zero Food Loss Value Chains in Africa: Building sustainable food systems; E-Mobility for All in Africa: Supporting the continent’s transition to electric mobility; championing African Youth Innovators: Empowering the next generation of environmental leaders and Valuing Nature: Advocating for the global recognition of nature’s intrinsic value, particularly following the COP on Biodiversity.