Earthshot Prize 2026

Exciting times this September, as the finalists in the Earthshot prize have been announced.

The finalists are absolutely inspiring, and the scale of what they are doing is absolutely massive. 

The Prince of Wales launched this prize back in 2019, the aim being to “find, celebrate and scale solutions to repair the planet”. 

There are five categories of the Earthshot prize and they are:

• Protect and Restore Nature

• Clean Our Air

• Revive Our Oceans

• Build a Waste-free World

• Fix Our Climate by 2030
  

Five winners, one in each category, will be announced in November in Mumbai.   The £1 million prize aims to help the winners take their work up to the next level.  

The Earthshot video below gives you a very good example of the sort of scale we are talking about, particularly with the awe-inspiring Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.   It reconnects a stunning 2,100 mountain landscape across the US and Canada, and in so doing, helps grizzlies, caribou and wolves move freely again.  It also protects a wild ecosystem.  (You should see the wildlife corridors the animals can use to cross a highway!)  We can all get involved – take a look here.

To give you another example of scale, Mahindra Last Mile Mobility has been shorted listed in the Clean Our Air category.   I read about this in The Sunday Times on 13th September 2026.) The Prince says that company is a great example of what the prize is about, namely a practical solution working at scale and changing the way people move around cities.  Mahindra makes electric autorickshaws. Their goal is to put one million vehicles on the road by 2030.  There are 400,000 electric vehicles there at the moment.  

This is a huge change, and The Sunday Times reported that environmentalists are very excited about the speed with which it’s taking place.   75% of the vehicles on Indian roads are two and three wheelers – the fossil fuel types generate almost half of the smog choking the air.   One dealership reports that sales have gone from 25 to 30 a month 5 years ago to 800 a month now.  Looking forward, in January Delhi is banning the sale of autorickshaws that are powered by compressed natural gas, diesel or petrol. 

Think about it.   There are roughly 10 million autorickshaws on India’s streets.   Imagine if these can be switched to electric models.  And then imagine what would happen if this also took place in countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and others – anywhere where autorickshaws are the main way of getting about.  

An acorn of an idea can grow into a HUGE oak tree when it is followed through, as you can see from the three Argentinians of Satellites on Fire.  Their family friends lost their homes to wildfire, something we can all imagine no doubt after this summer.   Satellites on Fire uses thermal satellite imagery and AI to detect wildfires – and then can do this 35 minutes faster than NASA.  That gives real-time alerts to firefighters who can attend blazes while they are still contained.  It can protect communities in 21 countries across an incredible 92 million hectares.   Fire knows no boundaries, as we all know.

It seems to be that there is so much depressing news around climate change and the state of the environment.  Individuals can do our bit.  

And while we’re on the subject of massive scales, the Rothbury Estate Appeal (Wildlife Trusts) is coming to its final couple of weeks.  The Wildlife Trusts need to raise a whopping £30 million by the end of September and they are getting close, very close.  A successful appeal will mean they can buy 3,800 hectares (about 9,390 acres) and stop them being sold to goodness knows who to – developers? – for goodness knows what purpose.  Nature will be benefit.  Wildlife will benefit.  And that means we will as well. 

Good luck to all the finalists in the Earthshot Prize. Can't wait to see who the winners are!