Celebrity line-up for Earthshot Prize awards ceremony announced
Robert Irwin, the son of the late Australian wildlife conservationist Steve Irwin, will join a host of stars announcing the winners at the Earthshot Prize ceremony in Singapore.
Irwin will join Oscar winner Cate Blanchett and actors Lana Condor and Nomzamo Mbatha, during the Prince of Wales’s event on November 7, aimed at recognising solutions to “repair” the planet.
Blanchett, a member of the Earthshot judging panel, said: “The Earthshot Prize is, again, highlighting and incentivising courageous, progressive, and inventive solutions that can be rapidly upscaled.
“We don’t have time for inaction and despair, and the incredible climate solutions from around the globe are cause for genuine hope.
“The climate solutions showcased by the prize are wildly exciting – exciting because they are so simple, so possible, and so inevitable.”
Steve Irwin was a zookeeper and television personality whose wildlife shows caught the imagination of audiences in his homeland and across the globe before he died in 2006 after being stabbed by a stingray.
His children, Robert and Bindi, have continued his legacy – working in wildlife conservation and appearing on television.
William held his first Earthshot Prize awards ceremony at London’s Alexandra Palace in 2021, with Boston hosting the event last year – an ambitious project which each year presents five category winners with £1 million each to scale up their environmental ideas.
Among the 15 finalists are Enso, a British based company which has created a more efficient electric vehicle tyre that sheds less particles, while Sea Forest from Australia has developed a seaweed-based livestock feed to reduce the planet warming methane emissions from cattle and sheep.
Hosting the night will be Hannah Waddingham, who performed similar duties when Liverpool staged the Eurovision Song Contest earlier this year.
William, along with celebrity supporters of Earthshot, is expected to fly to Singapore by a commercial, not private flight – and other measures will be in place to make the event as sustainable as possible, organisers say.
During his four-day trip to Singapore, which begins on November 5, the prince will take part in Earthshot Week, a series of events bringing together businesses and investors with past winners and current finalists to accelerate their solutions.
William will take part in dragon boating, meet Singaporeans to learn how they are working locally to protect the planet, while the 15 finalists will take part in a “fellowship” retreat that will give them networking opportunities.
