The Earthshot Prize

Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington is proud to be an official nominator for The Earthshot Prize 2025

Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington is proud to be an official nominator for The Earthshot Prize to find and grow the solutions that will repair our planet this decade.

The Earthshots

Every year until 2030, The Earthshot Prize Council will award £1 million each to break-through solutions across five separate categories:

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

Criteria

Our review panel will have the tough job of selecting which applications best respond to The Earthshot Prize’s criteria. We will assess applications across five criteria:

  • Relevance—How well does the solution align to the selected Earthshot category and priority areas and does it use any of the cross-cutting enablers?
  • Impact— Will the solution make a significant global impact? Does it also have a positive human impact?
  • Maturity— How developed is the solution? Is it proven and at a stage where The Earthshot Prize will provide the boost needed to scale the solution?
  • Organisation—Does the solution have a solid organisational structure whereby we can trust that if they won The Earthshot prize it would be invested well?
  • Overall—Does the solution have the wow factor? Is it innovative and inspiring?

Nominations

We are currently accepting applications from potential nominees for 2025. If you have an outstanding project or initiative that you think is worthy of being nominated for an Earthshot Prize please provide us with some details about your project through this online form. It should take 30 – 45 minutes to complete.

Winners and finalists

Previous winners and finalists provide a sense of the type and range of solutions that The Earthshot Prize Council is looking for. It is highly competitive, but for a fantastic reward—the prize money, the exposure, and the support to scale the solution.

One of our nominees – Sea Forest – was a finalist for the 2023 Earthshot Prize, which was recognition of their hard work and the amazing solution the Sea Forest team have developed.  Sea Forest co-founder Sam Elsom says “Earthshot is far more than a prize, but rather a support team to assist us in scaling our solution - it’s been a very worthwhile process.”

Timeline

Potential nominees need to complete the online form by 25 October 2024. Our review panel will select the best 3 or 4 solutions by 15 November 2024 and put them forward as nominees. The nominees will then have until 6 December 2024 to provide the Earthshot Prize administrators with any additional information. In February 2025, the University will issue communication material celebrating the nominations put forward to help raise their profile and build awareness of The Earthshot Prize.