William announces Earthshot Prize 2025 winners in Rio ceremony

A project to restore tropical forests and a global ocean treaty initiative are among the winners of this year’s Earthshot Prize.

The winners, named at an awards ceremony in Brazil on Wednesday, will each be given £1m to scale up their projects to repair the climate.

The Prince of Wales, who founded the global environmental award in 2020, said the winners were an “inspiration” and “proof that progress is possible”.

Brazilian football legend Cafu, Olympian Rebeca Andrade and former Formula 1 driver Sebastian Vettel were among the presenters, while pop stars Kylie Minogue and Shawn Mendes performed at the ceremony in Rio de Janeiro’s Museum of Tomorrow.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan were also in attendance.

Prince William, who is the president of the prize, told those gathered at the ceremony that he had founded the award with the aim of making “this the decade in which we transformed our world for the better”.

“We set out to tackle environmental issues head on and make real, lasting changes that would protect life on Earth.”

The prize was inspired by former US President John F Kennedy’s Moonshot project, which challenged scientists to get astronauts to the Moon and back safely.

There are five Earthshots, or goals, for which an award is given: Protect and Restore Nature; Clean Our Air; Revive Our Oceans; Build a Waste-Free World; and Fix Our Climate.

The future king has committed himself to the prize for 10 years, with Rio marking a halfway point for the venture.

This year, nearly 2,500 nominees were submitted from 72 countries. Of these, 15 finalists were selected, from which the five winners were chosen.

• Protect and Restore Nature: re.green, in Brazil, is making protecting one of the world’s most important ecosystems, the Atlantic Forest, financially viable
• Clean Our Air: The city of Bogotá, has shown how public policy can bring lasting change, through means such as clean air zones and re-greening degraded areas in the Colombian capital
• Revive Our Oceans: The High Seas Treaty is a global ocean initiative that will set out clear measures to conserve marine life, among other things, and will go into effect from January 2026
• Build a Waste-Free World: Lagos Fashion Week, in Nigeria, is redefining the industry, with each designer wishing to showcase required to show their commitment to sustainable practice
• Fix Our Climate: Friendship is dedicated to helping vulnerable communities across Bangladesh for a multiude of things from access to public services, health, education and preparing for natural disasters

Chief executive of re.green, Thiago Picolo, said that winning the Protect & Restore Nature prize puts the organisation “on the right path”.

“Winning a prize likes this is validation for us, helps us know we’re going in the right direction, facilitates conversations we need to have with banks, capital providers, corporates,” he said.

Referring to the winners as “innovators”, Prince William called the Earthshot Prize a “mission driven by the kind of extraordinary optimism we have felt here tonight”.

“There’s a great deal we can learn from their determination, their vision for scale, and their unyielding belief that we can create a better world.”

The chair of the board of trustees, Christiana Figueres, said they were building a “global legacy”.

“These winners are proof that the spirit of collective action born here in Rio continues to grow stronger, more determined, and more urgent than ever.

“Their 2030 aims are deeply ambitious – but their impact to date, their plans in place and their tenacity fuels my optimism.”

Earlier in the day, Prince William met the 15 finalists during a visit to the Christ the Redeemer statue, where he posed for a photograph on the same spot his late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, did 34 years ago.

But much of the prince’s five-day visit to Brazil has been focused on climate and the environment.

On Tuesday, he criticised criminals for their involvment in the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest during a speech at the United for Wildlife conference.

He also travelled to the small island of Paqueta, where he met locals, learnt about mangrove conservation and planted tree saplings.

On Thursday, he will be travelling to Belem in the Amazon rainforest, where he is scheduled to give a speech at COP30, the UN’s annual climate change meeting.