The Earth Prize is the world's largest environmental sustainability competition for young people that empowers students aged 13-19 with mentorship and $100,000 funding to develop creative and actionable solutions addressing critical environmental issues.
Born out of the global climate movement of 2019, when thousands of students rallied for climate action, It is the first and flagship initiative of The Earth Foundation, a non-profit organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, founded by Peter McGarry. The competition was first launched in September 2021, and first awarded in March 2022.
Since then, The Earth Prize has empowered over 15,000 young people from over 160 countries and territories to solve environmental sustainability problems. Having started with the 2025 edition, there are seven regional winners selected by an expert jury to represent Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Oceania & Southeast Asia. Each regional winner receives $12,500 to implement their solution, before a public vote decides the global winner.
Furthermore, each regional winner becomes the custodian of a special Earth Prize flag: hand-embroidered from recycled sailboat cloth - which they look after for one year, passing from one generation of change-makers to the next.
Three mentors are also recognised as âÂÂThe Earth Prize Mentor of the Yearâ and will be awarded with a $2,500 prize each. Furthermore, $10,000 is also allocated to the new project, Educators Hub, coming for the 2026 competition, to award teachers and educators registered to The Earth Prize competition.
In the 2025 edition, The Earth Prize awarded 7 regional winners chosen by the adjudicating panel, with team PURA from Europe achieving the Global Winner title following a public vote. The finalists created pioneering, never-seen-before solutions spanning physical inventions, digital platforms, and community-focused solutions.
Team Delavo, a group of four teenage girls from Diyarbakñr Bahçeà Âehir College Science and Technology High School in Turkey secured the top position as winners of the second edition of The Earth Prize on April 25th, 2023 for their âÂÂe-Caundryâ invention, a filtration device that can be installed in washing machines to recycle approximately 8,200 liters of wastewater per year.
In the 2022 edition of The Earth Prize, ten teams of teenage students from Armenia, Great Britain, Vietnam, Switzerland, Taiwan, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Jamaica, and Kenya advanced to the final phase of the competition, including students from Eton College (Great Britain).
The Earth Prize 2022 Awards Ceremony took place virtually on March 25, 2022. Team Adorbsies, a team of three teenage girls from Vietnam who proposed the idea for a biodegradable sanitary pad made out of dragon fruit waste, was announced as the first-ever winner of the competition.