The University is the only official nominator based in New Zealand for the international Earthshot Prize. This awards innovative sustainability projects that highlight human ingenuity, drive change, and inspire collective action. There are five categories which address our global environmental challenges: protect and restore nature, clean our air, revive our oceans, build a waste-free world, and fix our climate.
There are five prizes worth nearly NZ$2 million (£1,000,000) each, awarded by The Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern joined the Foundation’s board of trustees in 2023.
“In a time of division, hate, and hyper-pessimism in the climate discourse and wider society generally, Earthshot’s mission couldn’t be hitting the mark more,” says Dr Angi Buettner, Te Kura Tānga Kōrero Ingarihi, Kiriata, Whakaari, Pāpāho—School of English, Film, Theatre, Media and Communication, and Art History. “In order to find solutions, we need to avoid the negative rhetoric and instead spotlight where community is happening, and where people already pull together for solutions. The Earthshot Prize has created an inspiring and innovative platform to do that.”
The Earthshot Prize not only makes available the transformative financial resources of £5 million per year, it also has built a global, diverse, and hugely influential network of partnerships and collaborations involved with all levels of how the Prize works. All finalists get access to mentoring and support throughout the process.
“This network is unprecedented in its variety and scale,” says Dr Buettner. “It is genuinely innovative not least because of having integrated the need to communicate and amplify the message that the future of humankind is in the balance and that urgent optimism and action are needed. But ideas are nothing without being able to be shared and communicated.”
In 2023 one of the University’s nominees, Sea Forest Ltd, was one of fifteen finalists for The Earthshot Prize.
“It is always inspiring seeing the range of innovative environmental solutions being developed here in Aotearoa,” says Andrew Wilks, Director of Sustainability, who manages the nomination process for the University. “The nominees we have put forward are all doing amazing work and give me hope that we can overcome our global environmental challenges.”
The University’s 2024 nominees are as follows:
Neocrete
Neocrete creates high-performing, low carbon concrete by replacing cement with pozzolans (either volcanic ash or industrial waste) which have been activated by the Neocrete Activator. Concrete is the most used product in the world and 8 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are from making cement for concrete. Concrete usage is increasing. The problem with making cement is that carbon is emitted when limestone is heated to “activate” it to act as a binder.
Neocrete’s Activator is nano-engineered to chemically activate pozzolans, found abundantly around the world. Neocrete can currently replace a world-leading 50–60 percent of the cement in concrete, with no loss in early strength, while increasing durability and resistance to climate change. Neocrete is on track to produce carbon free concrete by 2027, and thereafter carbon negative concrete.
Other solutions rely on heating, are prohibitively expensive to scale, or reduce the performance of concrete. With minimal processing and heat, Neocrete is not only low carbon, it’s also low cost, high performance, and can be deployed very rapidly using existing infrastructureand abundant global materials.
The co-founder of Neocrete, Matt Kennedy-Good, completed his LLB/BA at Victoria University of Wellington.
UsedFULLY
UsedFULLY creates high-value, high-performing products for the roading, construction, and other industries, made from unwanted textiles.
Textiles are a fundamental part of everyday life, from what we wear, to the uniforms of front line workers, the sheets and towels and blankets in hospitals, retirement homes, and hotels. But what we clothe and protect ourselves with is resource intensive and mostly ends up in landfill, creating greenhouse gases and pollution. UsedFULLY’s science-based solutions combat the global textile waste crisis at scale.
UsedFULLY’s pioneering cleantech solutions turn unwanted textiles, which are either proteins (animal fibres), cellulosic (plant fibres), or a petro-chemical mix, into high value products for a range of industries, overcoming barriers to reuse by working within existing supply chains.
Cetogenix
Cetogenix diverts global organic waste into high-value products that mitigate climate change, defossilise global supply chains, and eliminate the risk of environmental pollution. Its flagship platform—Ceto-Boost™—is a modular, scalable process that uses temperature, pressure, and air—with no additional chemicals—to efficiently deconstruct organic waste to create useful products, such as biomethane, low-carbon fertilisers, and biomaterials.
The result is a 95 percent reduction in organic waste volumes, added value and climate change mitigation, and elimination of contaminants such as micro-plastics, pathogens, and persistent organic pollutants.
Over 20,000 organic waste and wastewater processing facilities could be retrofitted with Ceto-Boost™. Opportunities also exist for remote and indigenous communities to install these systems to drive local circular economy opportunities, where organic wastes are used to create food and energy self-sufficiency.
Hot Lime labs
Hot Lime uses solid state sorbents to capture CO2 from forestry and greenhouse crop waste, increasing greenhouse production by up to 30% without the use of traditional fossil-derived CO2.
Most commercial greenhouses globally use natural gas to provide heat and yield-boosting CO2, key ingredients in this $250b industry. The lack of commercially-viable renewable CO2 is a major impediment to decarbonising this hard to abate industry.
Hot Lime aims to decarbonise half the world’s greenhouses by 2030, reducing fossil emissions by 120 megatonnes per year. In addition to providing cost competitive green CO2, the Hot Lime technology makes biochar as a byproduct of CO2 production. Good quality biochar can be integrated into the soil, sequestering carbon for hundreds of years and on its way into the ground can be used as an animal feed supplement and as filters for problematic waste streams.
The Capital Kiwi Project
The Capital Kiwi Project is one of the largest-scale conservation projects in the country, with the mission to restore a large-scale population of wild kiwi to the hills of the capital city. For five years it has operated a 4,600-strong stoat trap network across 24,000 hectares (the largest intensive network in Aotearoa), seeking to eradicate stoats from the mainland.
The project is an example of re-wilding at scale; a distinctly Aotearoa-New Zealand kaupapa, built around unique principles of kotahitanga (unity). Landowners, communities, and iwi (mana whenua, gifting) working together. The ultimate vision is citizens of Wellington going to sleep at night hearing kiwi calling and being immensely proud of having enabled that.
The 100 arrivals in 2024 are part of the largest-ever kiwi translocation. For the first time in 150 years kiwi are calling from the wild west of Wellington. It is a replicable model for how communities can come together to look after te taiao (nature).
Zincovery
Zincovery has developed technology to produce 100 percent recycled and high-purity zinc metal, whilst reducing emissions by up to 95 percent compared to existing methods.
This is a product that does not currently exist in the market. Every year over 5 million tonnes of electric arc furnace dust—a classified hazardous waste—is landfilled because existing recycling is coal dependent and too expensive. Zincovery’s innovative technology can economically recycle more electric arc furnace dust, reducing the rate of landfilling. Additionally, Zincovery’s technology can reduce emissions from the zinc industry by up to 90 million tonnes per annum.
Zincovery's solution is enabled by a highly innovative hydrogen-based furnace technology. This technology can revolutionize the zinc industry and has platform potential across critical minerals with a combined market size of $365 billion, including copper, nickel, and cobalt.