Prince William announces five Earthshot winners in Cape Town

Prince William and the Earthshot Prize announced the five 2024 winners at a ceremony in Cape Town on Wednesday evening.

The winners were selected from 15 Earthshot Prize Finalists from all over the world. They each won £1 million (about R22,703,000) to accelerate the scaling of their solutions.

Organizers say the Earthshot Prize searches around the world for game-changing innovations “that will help us rebuild our planet”, awarding the top five solutions £1 million each year to scale up their work.

Five winners:

• Advanced Thermoelectric Systems, USA, to Fix Our Climate

• High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, global (120 countries), to revitalize our oceans

• Keep IT Cool Kenya for a Zero Waste World

• Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, Kazakhstan, to protect and restore nature

• Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO), Ghana, for clean air.

Prince William said the world can be rich in opportunity, hope and optimism.

“That’s why the Earthshot Prize exists. Support game changers, inventors, creators, creatives, leaders; help them build on the amazing things they have already achieved; accelerate the scaling of our innovations and inspire the next generation to create the future we all need.” – said the prince.

About the winners

Fix Our Planet winner Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems (ATS) has developed a simple, safe and scalable technology to capture waste heat and convert it into electricity, offering a solution for heavy industries such as cement and steel production.

These industries require extremely high temperatures, which generate enormous amounts of waste heat that is usually lost. ATS technologies have the potential to save gigatons of CO2.

The High Ambition Coalition, bringing together 119 countries with the ambitious goal of protecting 30% of land and oceans by 2030, identifies technical, financial and knowledge gaps and provides technical assistance and funding to governments.

Keep IT Cool (KIC) addresses the problem of food waste by providing sustainable, localized Keep IT Cool (KIC) refrigeration systems that help small-scale farmers and fishermen preserve their produce. By installing solar-powered cold storage facilities at fish landing sites, KIC significantly reduces spoilage and waste, keeping the catch fresh and managing its transport to market.

The Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative has achieved an almost unprecedented success: saving the critically endangered saiga antelope from extinction. This mission has grown into one of the world’s largest conservation projects and aims to protect and restore Kazakhstan’s Golden Steppe, one of the least protected natural ecosystems in the world.

GAYO, a youth-led, gender-balanced organization, uses its “Zero Waste Model” to drive behavioral change in waste management practices across Africa, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions and particle pollution, and generates additional income for communities.

Their goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and particle pollution in Ghana by 70% compared to open burning, and divert a total of 4,000 tonnes of waste by 2030.

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