Bahamas-based Coral Vita’s innovative approach to coral farming has been awarded as one of the first ever five winners of the most prestigious environment prize in history, The Earthshot Prize.
Coral Vita was awarded the prize for the Revive our Oceans Earthshot for its innovative approach to coral farming. Their approach of growing coral on land then replanting it in the ocean can grow coral up to 50 times faster than traditional methods and improves resilience to the impact of climate change. As well as restoring reefs, Coral Vita works with local communities, public officials, and private companies to improve education and create new job prospects in environmental protection.
“Winning the Earthshot Prize is a win for the ocean and jumpstarts scaling our impact from The Bahamas around the world,” said Sam Teicher, Coral Vita founder. “We, ultimately, envision massive coral farms in every nation with reefs, working side by side with communities, scientists, students, NGOs [nongovernmental organizations], governments, and the private sector. As we work to deliver ecosystem-scale restoration, failure is not an option for our political, industrial, and media leaders solving for climate change and habitat destruction. The cost of inaction far exceeds funding solutions today. And those solutions exist. All we need is for those with power and resources to act for good.”
Through winning the prize, Coral Vita will receive £1million ($1.4 million) prize money and a global network of professional and technical support to scale their innovative technology. The prize will enable Coral Vita to accelerate their goal to establish a global network of coral farms to grow a billion corals each year, including deploying the latest technology in coral farming as well as developing funding models to make coral restoration more financially viable for coastal communities. Winning will accelerate Coral Vita’s scaling plans, helping them to build new coral farms and working with other leading organizations to kick-start a restoration economy around the world that people everywhere can be part of.
Jason Knauf, CEO of the Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, said Coral Vita presents an incredible way to regenerate coral reefs at much faster rates than previously possible, whilst also being economically sustainable.
“Coral Vita’s work and leadership will shine a light on what can be done to restore our world’s dying corals and inspire people around the planet to support the restoration and protection movement,” said Knauf.
Coral Vita was one of the five inaugural Earthshot Prize winners chosen for their groundbreaking solutions to the greatest environmental challenges facing the planet and their ability to scale their impact globally in response to the urgent challenges we face.
Also named winners along with Coral Vita were Protect and Restore Nature: The Republic of Costa Rica, a pioneering scheme paying local citizens to restore natural ecosystems that has led to an incredible revival of the rainforest. Clean our Air: Takachar, India, a cutting-edge technology to create fuel from agricultural waste and put a stop to the global air problem of crop burning. Build a Waste-free World, The City of Milan, Italy, a city-wide initiative that has dramatically cut waste while tackling hunger. And Fix our Climate, AEM Electrolyser, Thailand/Germany/Italy, an ingenious green hydrogen technology developed to transform how homes and buildings are powered.
The environmental awards were presented at a glittering ceremony held at London’s Alexandra Palace.
Prince William, Earthshot Prize founder and prize council member, said the five inspirational winners show that everyone has a role to play in the global effort to repair the planet.
“We need businesses, leaders, innovators, and communities to take action,” said Prince William. “And, ultimately, we need all of us to demand that the solutions get the support they need. Because the success of our winners is our collective, global earth shot.”
Winners were selected by The Earthshot Prize Council, a diverse team of influential individuals which included Prince William, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, Sir David Attenborough, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Indra Nooyi, Shakira Mebarak, Christiana Figueres, Luisa Neubauer, Cate Blanchett, Yao Ming, Daniel Alves Da Silva, Ernest Gibson, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Jack Ma, and Naoko Yamazaki.
The winners were connected to London Earthshot 2021 by global broadcast where The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were joined by Earthshot Prize Council Members Sir David Attenborough, Christiana Figueres, Dani Alves, and a host of stars and performers including Coldplay, Yemi Alade and Ed Sheeran. The incredible ceremony, designed sustainably, celebrated the ingenuity of all 15 Earthshot Prize finalists and their extraordinary work to tackle the greatest environmental challenges of our time.
All 15 finalists will receive tailored support from The Earthshot Prize Global Alliance, a network of world-leading philanthropies, NGOs, and private sector businesses around the world who will help scale their solutions through access to resources across numerous professions including manufacturing, retail, supply chains, legal advice, digital technology, business strategy and government relations.
The awards ceremony concluded by revealing The Earthshot Prize will travel to the United States of America in 2022. Nominations for the 2022 Prize will begin in January 2022.
The Earthshot Prize was launched by Prince William and The Royal Foundation in October 2020. Like President John F. Kennedy’s “Moonshot” did almost 60 years ago, the prize aims to unleash an unprecedented wave of innovation and leadership to tackle the challenges posed by climate change and the threats to our oceans, air, and land. The prize is an urgent call to action to the world and aims to turn the current pessimism surrounding environmental issues into optimism, by championing inspiring leadership and helping to scale incredible cutting-edge solutions.
It will discover 50 winners over 10 years with the power to repair the planet.
As for the process of allocating prize funding during the nomination and finalist selection process, each nominee included an outline of what winning The Earthshot Prize would enable for their solution in terms of scaling the reach and impact of their work. After their selection as finalists, the ambitions were discussed in detail with The Earthshot Prize team as part of planning tailored support for each finalist.
The Earthshot Prize team will work with the winners to develop bespoke agreements that set out the grant that the foundation is awarding, the activity it can be used to support and the reporting requirements and demonstrable impact they expect over the grant period. Each grant will be expected to show impact toward the relevant Earthshot for which the prize has been awarded. Grant awards will be made in line with United Kingdom Charity Law and will require ongoing monitoring, evaluation and reporting to ensure it is being used as expected. The Board of The Royal Foundation will have final approval and sign off over grant agreements.
Every year, from 2021 until 2030, The Earthshot Prize Council will award The Earthshot Prize to five winners, one per Earthshot.
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