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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteThe Earthshot Prize’s five environmental goals—called the five Earthshots—are Protect and Restore Nature, Clean Our Air, Revive Our Oceans, Build a Waste-Free World, and Fix Our Climate. They are ambitious outcomes for 2030, intended to guide practical solutions rather than serve as separate award categories. Together, they cover ecosystems, air quality, oceans, materials and waste, and climate change.
The five Earthshot goals at a glance
The Earthshot Prize describes each goal as a simple choice for the future. The outcomes are broad enough to apply globally, while three official focus areas under each goal indicate the kinds of work the Prize wants to accelerate.
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| Earthshot | Environmental domain | Stated 2030 outcome | Official focus areas |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protect and Restore Nature | Forests, wetlands, peatlands, wildlife and food systems | The natural world is growing rather than shrinking for the first time in human history. | Protect high-biodiversity places; restore damaged ecosystems; feed people while protecting nature. |
| Clean Our Air | Air pollution, open burning and transport emissions | Everyone breathes clean, healthy air at World Health Organization standard or better. | Citizen data and clean-air policy; prevent burning of fields, forests and waste; clean transportation for all. |
| Revive Our Oceans | Coastal ecosystems, fisheries and marine food chains | Oceans are repaired and preserved for future generations. | Protect and restore coasts; replenish fish populations; reduce demand for fishmeal. |
| Build a Waste-Free World | Food loss, plastics, fashion and electronics | Nothing goes to waste; one process’s leftovers become another process’s raw materials. | Reduce food loss from farm to fork; phase out single-use and non-recycled plastics; create high-value circularity in fashion and electronics. |
| Fix Our Climate | Energy, greenhouse gases and difficult industrial emissions | A carbon-neutral economy lets every culture, community and country thrive. | An equitable clean-energy future; non-CO2 greenhouse gases; decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors. |
The framework is intentionally interconnected. A clean transport system can improve air quality and cut carbon; restoring wetlands can protect biodiversity while storing carbon; and circular manufacturing can reduce both waste and emissions.
What the Earthshots are—and what they are not
The Earthshots are the Earthshot Prize’s five overarching environmental missions. The Prize was founded by HRH Prince William in 2020, and its launch announcement on 8 October 2020 said the challenges were inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s Moonshot. The 2030 deadline gives the missions a shared horizon rather than an open-ended aspiration.
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The launch described the goals as being underpinned by scientifically agreed targets, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals and other internationally recognised measures. The Prize’s 2024 Impact Report calls them aspirational goals that finalists and winners pursue through invention and innovation. That wording matters: an Earthshot is a direction and an outcome, not a single technology, policy or numerical score that every project must meet.
The five names are sometimes called “categories,” but that can be misleading. They are better understood as five problem areas within one environmental framework. A nominated solution may affect more than one Earthshot, although the Prize presents each winner in connection with the goal it most directly advances.
1. Protect and Restore Nature
This Earthshot addresses the loss and degradation of natural ecosystems. Its 2030 choice is to ensure that, “for the first time in human history, the natural world is growing – not shrinking – on our planet.” The emphasis is on reversing the direction of change, not merely slowing further damage.
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The focus includes forests, wetlands, peatlands and wildlife corridors—places that support unusually rich biodiversity or connect habitats that would otherwise become isolated. Protection can involve conservation models, better stewardship, monitoring or governance that keeps intact ecosystems from being converted or degraded.
Restore damaged ecosystems
Protection alone cannot recover areas that have already been damaged. Restoration work aims to bring ecological function back to degraded landscapes and habitats. Depending on the setting, a solution might be a restoration project, a method for regenerating an ecosystem or a system that helps communities measure and maintain recovery.
Feed people while protecting nature
The third focus area recognises that food production is part of the nature challenge. The goal is not to separate conservation from human needs, but to find ways to provide food while reducing pressure on ecosystems. Solutions can therefore combine agricultural practice, land management and conservation rather than treating them as competing objectives.
2. Clean Our Air
The Clean Our Air Earthshot sets a public-health outcome: by 2030, everyone should breathe clean, healthy air “at World Health Organisation standard or better.” It covers pollution sources, information and the systems people use to move around.
Citizen data and clean-air policy
Air-quality information is often unevenly distributed. The official focus includes citizen data collection and policies that use better evidence to reduce exposure. Community monitoring can make pollution visible in places that lack dense official networks, while policy turns measurements into standards, enforcement or targeted action.
Prevent burning of fields, forests and waste
Open burning is a direct focus because it releases harmful pollution and can damage ecosystems. The Earthshot includes preventing the burning of agricultural fields, forests and waste. Solutions may combine alternatives to burning with collection systems, enforcement, education or new uses for materials that would otherwise be burned.
Transition to clean transportation for all
Transport is the third focus area. “For all” signals that cleaner mobility is meant to be broadly accessible, not limited to wealthy districts or premium vehicles. Relevant solution types include clean-transport systems and the infrastructure, services or policies needed to make them practical at scale.
3. Revive Our Oceans
Revive Our Oceans focuses on the health of marine ecosystems and the people and industries that depend on them. Its 2030 choice is to repair and preserve oceans for future generations.
Protect and restore coastal ecosystems
Coastal zones are where land and sea pressures meet. Protection can keep valuable habitats intact; restoration can rebuild areas already degraded. Projects in this focus area may involve habitat restoration, coastal management or approaches that give local communities a durable role in stewardship.
Replenish fish populations
Healthy fisheries require fish populations to recover and remain productive. The focus on replenishment points to solutions that improve stocks, reduce damaging pressure or strengthen management. The objective is ecological recovery, not simply moving the same fishing effort from one depleted area to another.
Reduce demand for fishmeal
Fishmeal is used as an input in food and feed systems. Reducing demand can ease pressure on small pelagic fish and the marine food web. Solutions may include alternative ingredients, changes in aquaculture or other methods that provide the same function with less reliance on wild-caught fish.
4. Build a Waste-Free World
This Earthshot describes a circular-economy model: nothing goes to waste, and the leftovers of one process become the raw materials of the next, “just like they do in nature.” It addresses material flows from food production through consumer goods and electronics.
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Reduce food loss from farm to fork
Food can be lost during harvesting, storage, transport, processing, retail and consumption. The focus therefore covers the entire chain rather than only household waste. Solutions may improve handling, logistics, preservation, market coordination or the use of unavoidable by-products.
Phase out single-use and non-recycled plastics
The stated direction is to phase out single-use plastics and plastics that are not recycled. That requires more than swapping one disposable item for another: systems must reduce unnecessary material use, support reuse where appropriate and ensure that materials placed in recycling streams can actually be recovered.
Create high-value circularity in fashion and electronics
Fashion and electronics contain valuable materials but are often designed around short use cycles. High-value circularity means keeping products and components useful through repair, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing or effective material recovery. The aim is to preserve value, not merely to send more discarded goods through a low-value recycling process.
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5. Fix Our Climate
Fix Our Climate is the Earthshot concerned with greenhouse-gas emissions and the economic systems that produce them. The Prize states the choice this way: “We choose to fix the world’s climate by cutting out carbon: building a carbon-neutral economy that lets every culture, community and country thrive.”
An equitable clean-energy future
Clean energy is paired with equity. The focus is not only replacing fossil-fuel generation, but making the transition workable for different communities and countries. Solutions can include clean-energy technologies, access models, financing approaches or systems that expand reliable low-carbon power without shifting unreasonable costs onto vulnerable people.
Non-CO2 greenhouse-gas emissions
Carbon dioxide is not the only climate pollutant. The Earthshot explicitly includes non-CO2 greenhouse gases, so relevant work can target emissions such as methane or nitrous oxide. Addressing these gases complements, rather than replaces, long-term carbon reduction.
Decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors
Some industries are difficult to electrify or decarbonise because of high-temperature heat, chemical reactions, heavy equipment or long-lived infrastructure. The focus on hard-to-abate sectors covers technologies and business models that reduce emissions where straightforward substitutions are not enough.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How the Earthshot Prize uses the five goals
The goals provide the organising framework for the Prize’s annual search for solutions. A global network of Official Nominators submits candidates. The process then screens thousands of nominations through a Top 150 and Top 15 stage before selecting five winners each year.
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All 15 finalists enter a year-long fellowship with tailored support and partnership opportunities. Finalists therefore receive more than public recognition: the fellowship is designed to help them develop relationships, capacity and routes to wider deployment, even though only five receive the annual cash award.
A UK government description published in 2021 recorded the planned scale as five £1 million winners each year from 2021 through 2030—at least 50 solutions by 2030. That is a programme target, not a claim that every environmental indicator will be solved by the end of the decade.
Why the five Earthshots are connected
The Prize treats the goals as connected challenges rather than isolated silos. Environmental systems overlap:
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- Nature and climate: forests, wetlands and peatlands are nature assets and can also influence carbon storage and resilience.
- Air and climate: cleaner transport and reduced open burning can improve local health while lowering climate-warming emissions, depending on the solution.
- Oceans and food: healthier coastal ecosystems and replenished fish populations support marine biodiversity and food security.
- Waste and climate: preventing food loss, reducing virgin-material demand and designing circular products can avoid emissions associated with production and disposal.
- Equity across all five: a solution that works only for wealthy consumers or one region may not meet the broader intent of goals framed for everyone and every country.
Because of these links, a project can contribute to more than one Earthshot even when it is nominated under a single primary goal.
What success by 2030 would mean
The five Earthshots do not reduce to one universal metric. Success is described through the outcome attached to each mission: nature growing rather than shrinking; air meeting World Health Organization standards or better; oceans repaired and preserved; materials circulating without waste; and a carbon-neutral economy that allows communities and countries to thrive.
Those statements are deliberately ambitious. They function as a north star for selecting and supporting solutions, while the specific evidence for a project depends on its environmental domain. A restoration initiative, a clean-air data network, a fishery intervention, a circular electronics model and an industrial decarbonisation technology cannot be evaluated with the same measurement.
Bottom line: the five names to remember
The Earthshot Prize stands for five 2030 missions: Protect and Restore Nature, Clean Our Air, Revive Our Oceans, Build a Waste-Free World, and Fix Our Climate. The Prize uses these goals to find, fund and support solutions through an annual process of nominators, finalists, fellows and five £1 million winners. Their shared purpose is to turn large environmental outcomes into practical innovation that can be adopted across communities, countries and sectors.
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