Updated: Wed, 10/02/2024 - 13:45

From Saturday, Oct. 5 through Monday, Oct. 7, the Downtown and Macdonald Campuses will be open only to McGill students, employees and essential visitors. Many classes will be held online. Remote work required where possible. See Campus Public Safety website for details.


Du samedi 5 octobre au lundi 7 octobre, le campus du centre-ville et le campus Macdonald ne seront accessibles qu’aux étudiants et aux membres du personnel de l’Université McGill, ainsi qu’aux visiteurs essentiels. De nombreux cours auront lieu en ligne. Le personnel devra travailler à distance, si possible. Voir le site Web de la Direction de la protection et de la prévention pour plus de détails.

News

McGill University Now Accepting Expressions of Interest for the 2025 Earthshot Prize

Published: 10 September 2024

McGill University is once again proud to be an Official Nominator of the Earthshot Prize. As an Official Nominator, we are part of a global community invited to submit nominations, selected for our ability to identify the most impactful solutions across all sectors worldwide.

The Earthshot Prize is a global environmental prize and platform for impact, dedicated to finding and growing solutions that will repair our planet this decade, in five categories or Earthshots.

The Earthshot Prize will consider solutions which make tangible progress towards one of the five Earthshots. They should:

  • address at least one of the five Earthshots.
  • be beyond idea stage.
  • have tested their solution in-field or with target audiences.
  • are at a ‘tipping point’ for scaling their impact within the next decade.

The Prize

One prize of £1 million will be awarded in each of the five Earthshots. The funding is to be used to scale the impact of the work with the ambition that solutions will lead to mass adoption, replication, and scaling. Winners and finalists will receive personalized support from the Earthshot Prize network of NGOs, businesses, governments, and expert mentors.

The Earthshots

The prize focuses on five “Earthshots” or themes, that address areas in which the planet is experiencing environmental devastation on a catastrophe scale:

  1. Protect and Restore Nature
    • Protecting areas of high biodiversity such as forests, wetland, peatlands and wildlife corridors
    • Restoring damaged ecosystems
    • Feeding people while protecting nature
  2. Clean Our Air
    • Engaging citizens in data collection and clean air policies
    • Preventing the burning of fields, forests, and waste
    • Transitioning to clean transportation for all
  3. Revive Our Oceans
    • Protecting and restoring coastal ecosystems
    • Replenishing fish populations
    • Reducing demand for fishmeal
  4. Build a Waste-free World
    • Reducing food loss from farm-to-fork
    • Phasing out single-use and non-recycled plastics
    • High-value circularity in fashion and electronics
  5. Fix Our Climate
    • Creating an equitable clean energy future
    • Addressing non-C02 greenhouse gas emissions
    • Decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors

The Enablers

The “cross-cutting enablers” are identified approaches and tools that can accelerate the environmental improvements we seek without being specific to any single Earthshot. When adopted by innovators and their supporters, they could rapidly accelerate their growth and impact.

  1. Solutions that use technology, AI or data to enable transformative change
  2. Solutions that create or leverage nature and carbon markets, novel financial mechanisms and essential legal solutions
  3. Solutions led and informed by indigenous peoples and local communities
  4. Solutions that promote shared economic opportunities
  5. Solutions that enable policy change

The Submission

We are looking for inspiring, impactful and inclusive solutions to submit to the 2025 Earthshot Prize.

Competitive solutions will have the following characteristics:

  1. Potential for Global Impact

Solutions must clearly articulate their impact to date, and their potential to make a difference in the future based on one or more of the following environmental metrics:

  • Hectares of land, ocean or freshwater systems protected or restored.
  • Biodiversity increases on land, freshwater systems or in oceans.
  • Reduction in concentrations of particulate matter (PM2.5/ PM10).
  • Tonnes of waste saved, reduced, recycled or avoided.
  • Tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions saved, captured or avoided.
  • Make a positive social impact, such as improving lives or creating green jobs, alongside the essential environmental impact.

 

  1. Diversity of Solution Types

Nominees may be:

  • An organisation (not-for-profit or for-profit)
  • Government institution, local or national (including a country or city)
  • A partnership of more than one organization
  • A team or small group of individuals

 

  1. Stage of Solution

Solutions should have the capability to have a major impact within a decade if they receive the appropriate technical, financial, communications or organisational support. The Solution’s stage of development should fit the following criteria:

  • They are well-developed beyond the idea stage.
  • They require additional support to be scaled or replicated at scale. Solutions that have already achieved a level of maturity where they only need access to funding are less of a focus.
  • They have made significant progress in the past year with clear organisational or solution-based breakthroughs.

 

  1. Organizational Foundations

Solutions should have the following criteria:

  • Quality of leadership: A dedicated team/founder committed to scaling or replicating the solution who bring knowledge of the problem it addresses.
  • Inclusive leadership: A team that demonstrates inclusivity and represent their community, including female, indigenous and local community-led solutions.
  • Organisational stability: The nominee ought to have solid governance and financial arrangements.
  • Scale model: A nominee with a credible model by which their solution could be replicated or scaled to have transformative impact.

Interested? 

Interested researchers must submit an Expression of Interest by October 15, 2024. 

Back to top