Curaçaoan initiative amongst twenty Caribbean projects nominated to £1 Million Earthshot Prize

PORT-OF-SPAIN - The Caribbean Climate-Smart Accelerator (CCSA) has nominated twenty different Caribbean  initiatives from across the region - including one from Curaçao - to the prestigious Earthshot Prize. An organization that catalyzes and accelerates climate-smart projects in the Caribbean, the CCSA actively helps develop initiatives aimed at delivering resilience, social development, and broad-based economic growth for local communities. The company became an official nominator for the Earthshot Prize in 2021.

Founded in 2020 by the Royal Foundation, the Earthshot Prize is a global prize designed to reward organizations and individuals who are working to enact widespread environmental change capable of helping repair the planet over the next ten years. Five winners are chosen, each within a specific category - Protect & Restore Nature; Clean Our Air; Revive Our Oceans; Build a Waste-Free World; and Fix Our Climate - and receive a grant of £1 million ($1.2 million USD) to help fund and scale their project. In the inaugural award ceremony last year, two Caribbean projects were named as winners: the Republic of Costa Rica (Protect & Restore Nature), and Bahamas-based Coral Vita (Revive Our Oceans).

This year's Earthshot Prize nominations were focused on tackling  the following themes:

·         Methane emissions

·         Transport

·         Forest fires

·         Regenerative agriculture

·         Land stewardship

·         Fashion and textiles

·         Single-use products

·         Overfishing

·         Blue carbon 

Currently, over 1000 solutions were put forward, a 30% increase compared to the previous year's nominations. The finalists are expected to be announced in the final quarter of 2022.

The initiatives nominated by the CCSA are: