Prince William’s Earthshot Prize 2025 Finalists Show the Blueprint for a Greener Future
From a breakthrough microplastics filter developed in Bristol to the world’s first fully upcycled skyscraper in Sydney, the Earthshot Prize 2025 Finalists represent bold innovation, global collaboration and climate leadership at its finest.
Founded by HRH The Prince of Wales, the £1 million annual prize celebrates five groundbreaking solutions across the categories Protect & Restore Nature, Clean Our Air, Revive Our Oceans, Build a Waste-Free World and Fix Our Climate. The winners will be announced at the Earthshot Prize Awards in Rio de Janeiro on 5 November 2025.
This year’s lineup includes extraordinary initiatives:
Protect & Restore Nature
Championing indigenous land rights, Nonette Royo leads the Tenure Facility, an organisation empowering local communities to protect their forests and ecosystems through secure land ownership. By recognising indigenous stewardship as the foundation of conservation, the project is safeguarding millions of hectares of forest, proving that sustainable development begins with giving power back to the people who live closest to nature.
At the heart of the Amazon, Thiago Picolo’s re.green is reimagining large-scale reforestation. Combining science, technology and local partnerships, re.green is restoring vast tracts of degraded land in Brazil, reviving biodiversity and carbon storage capacity. The initiative is a reminder that nature-based solutions can drive both environmental recovery and economic opportunity, a model the construction sector can learn from in balancing progress with preservation.
Brazil’s Minister for the Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, represents the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, an ambitious programme aimed at financing long-term protection for the world’s most critical rainforests. By creating a continuous funding stream for conservation, Silva’s leadership ensures that tropical forests (the lungs of the planet) remain standing for generations to come. It’s a global call for permanent environmental stewardship and shared responsibility.
Clean Out Air
Under the leadership of Carlos Fernando Galán, the City of Bogotá has emerged as a global model for clean mobility. The Colombian capital has transformed its urban transport system with thousands of electric buses, cycling corridors and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure, reducing emissions and improving quality of life for millions. Bogotá’s success proves that cities can grow without sacrificing clean air, setting a precedent for urban environments worldwide, including London’s own path to net-zero transport.
Representing one of India’s fastest-developing states, Shri Devang M. Thaker and the State of Gujarat are tackling industrial air pollution with ambitious policy reforms, renewable energy integration, and digital monitoring of emissions. Gujarat’s innovative emission trading scheme, the first of its kind in Asia, allows industries to cut pollution through market-driven efficiency. It’s a pioneering example of how governance, technology and accountability can converge to clean the air we breathe.
As Chairman of the Guangzhou Public Transport Group, Qin Haining has led one of the world’s largest urban electrification projects. The city’s entire bus and taxi fleets now run on electric power, cutting carbon output dramatically while reducing noise and particulate pollution. Guangzhou’s commitment shows that the transition to cleaner air is not only achievable but scalable, a lesson for megacities everywhere seeking to integrate sustainable infrastructure into dense, dynamic urban networks.
Revive Our Oceans
Leading efforts to safeguard the planet’s most vulnerable ecosystems, Rebecca Hubbard represents the High Seas Treaty, a landmark global agreement designed to protect international waters beyond national borders. This pioneering treaty sets a framework for marine conservation across nearly half the Earth’s surface, ensuring that biodiversity in the open ocean is preserved for generations to come. It’s a milestone in environmental diplomacy and a testament to how international collaboration can overcome the boundaries of politics for the sake of the planet.
A homegrown British innovation, Adam Root’s Matter, based in Bristol, has engineered a revolutionary microplastics filter for washing machines, targeting one of the largest sources of ocean pollution. By capturing microscopic fibres before they enter waterways, Matter directly addresses a crisis affecting marine life and global ecosystems. It’s a simple yet powerful solution that exemplifies how design, engineering and sustainability can work hand-in-hand, much like the construction industry’s shift toward cleaner materials and circular systems.
As CEO of The Nature Conservancy, Jennifer Morris leads the Bonds for Ocean Conservation initiative, a financial innovation turning national debt into funding for marine protection. By restructuring sovereign debt in exchange for commitments to safeguard marine areas, this programme has already preserved millions of hectares of ocean. It’s a bold rethinking of economics as a tool for sustainability, proving that protecting nature can also strengthen economies and coastal communities.
Build a Waste-free World
Through ATRenew, Chen Xuefeng is transforming the global electronics industry’s approach to waste. The company’s large-scale recycling network gives smartphones and electronic devices a new life, diverting millions of tonnes of e-waste from landfill while recovering precious materials for reuse. ATRenew’s model demonstrates that circular economies can be both profitable and planet-positive, a principle the construction sector is increasingly embracing in material recovery and lifecycle management.
Sustainability meets culture in Omoyemi Akerele’s Lagos Fashion Week, a platform that’s redefining the fashion industry across Africa. By championing circular design, ethical production and textile recycling, Akerele is reshaping an entire creative economy. Her work shows that waste-free innovation is not limited to manufacturing, it’s a mindset that can inspire every sector to rethink consumption, including the way buildings are designed, used and reimagined.
Standing tall on Sydney’s waterfront, the Quay Quarter Tower is celebrated as the world’s first fully upcycled skyscraper. Rather than demolish its ageing predecessor, engineers, architects and developers worked collaboratively to reuse over two-thirds of the existing structure, cutting embodied carbon by more than half. This visionary project redefines sustainable urban renewal and sets a new benchmark for global construction, proving that the greenest buildings may already exist. For London’s construction industry, it’s a clear signal, the future lies not just in building new, but in building smarter.
Fix Our Climate
The Honourable Mia Amor Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, continues to redefine what climate leadership looks like on the world stage. Under her vision, Barbados is on track to become fossil-free by 2030, setting a global example of how small island nations can lead with bold policy, innovation and community resilience. Her government’s strategy combines renewable energy, coastal protection and climate finance reform, a blueprint for nations everywhere, proving that decisive leadership can turn vulnerability into strength.
As co-founder of Form Energy, Mateo Jaramillo is revolutionising renewable power storage with his company’s long-duration iron-air batteries, capable of delivering clean energy for days at a time. This breakthrough addresses one of the most pressing challenges in the global energy transition: reliability. By enabling renewable sources like wind and solar to power cities continuously, Form Energy is bridging the gap between vision and viability, a critical step toward a fully decarbonised grid.
Through her organisation Friendship, Runa Khan has brought climate adaptation to the forefront of humanitarian work. Operating in Bangladesh’s flood-prone delta, Friendship builds floating hospitals, resilient housing and community-led disaster preparedness programmes that protect vulnerable populations against rising sea levels. Her work reminds us that climate innovation is not only about technology, it’s about compassion, equity and the human capacity to adapt and thrive even in the face of profound change.
Prince William praised the finalists as heroes of our time, reminding the world that 2030 is the decisive decade for change.
Why This Matters for London Construction
The built environment accounts for almost 40% of global carbon emissions. As projects like Quay Quarter Tower prove, sustainable design and retrofit strategies are not just visionary, they’re essential. London’s construction community must now lead by example: reusing, decarbonising and designing with environmental responsibility at every level.
At London Construction Magazine, we stand firmly behind the call to make our cities cleaner, safer and more resilient. The Earthshot Prize may be global in scale, but its message resonates deeply here in the UK, where innovation, leadership and collaboration can help shape a truly sustainable future.
