The Earthshot Prize CEO talks scalable environmental solutions

Speaker A: Lindsey Hall I'm Lindsey Hall.

Speaker B: And I'm Esther Wheeldon.

Speaker A: Welcome to All Things Sustainable, a podcast from SP Global. As your hosts, we'll dive into all the sustainability topics that are reshaping the business world.

Speaker B: Join us every Friday for in depth analysis and interviews with leaders from around the globe. Together, we'll break down big sustainability headlines and cut through the jargon.

Speaker A: Our regular listeners will know we have a couple core principles driving this podcast. Number one is the idea that you need to bring all sectors and all geographies under the tent in order to solve big sustainability challenges like climate change or nature loss. That's why we call this show All Things Sustainable. We talk to everyone. Principle number two is that we aim to move beyond high level abstract concepts to instead focus on concrete, tangible solutions. Today's podcast guest is the CEO of the earthshot Prize, an organization with a mission very aligned to this approach. If you're not familiar with the prize, some quick background. It was inspired by US President John F. Kennedy's Moonshot challenge to land a man on the moon within a decade. The Earthshot Prize was launched by Prince William of Wales back in 2020 to find and scale innovative solutions to the world's biggest environmental challenges by 2030, just a few years away. At this point, we'll include a link in our show Notes to an episode where we interviewed the earthshot Prize chair Jesper Broden during Climate Week Zurich. Each year the prize selects 15 finalists and awards five of them one million pounds each, to help advance or replicate their work. Next month, on November 17, the Earthshot Prize will hold its annual awards night in Mumbai. This is the first time India is hosting the awards and also the first time the awards will be streaming to 240 countries and territories in more than 40 languages via Prime Video during Climate Week NYC Last month I sat down with the Earthshot Prize CEO Jason Knopf for a live podcast event recorded in front of an audience in New York. Jason worked with Prince William to launch the prize and he talked to me on stage about this year's finalists and their solutions. We'll hear about many of those today. The 2026 finalists include one of India's biggest three wheeler manufacturers which is working to electrify transportation to improve air quality. They include an Argentinian startup using AI and thermal satellite imagery to detect wildfires. The finalists also include the Spanish city of Barcelona for its work to restore its coastline, and a ah, Danish corporation that transformed from one of Europe's most coal intensive utilities into a global leader in offshore Wind. Throughout the interview, you'll hear Jason explain why he's optimistic in spite of the challenges facing the planet. Uh, okay, let's dive into that conversation where Jason starts out by unpacking the earthshot prize mission.

Speaker C: There's one thing, and we'll have to talk about some other things, but that's, uh, earthshot is for everyone. And what I mean by that is we're looking at solutions from every sector, every geography. There was some people who got to know us in the first couple of years, started thinking about us, like as a sort of startup focused organization. And we do support startups and recognize them. They're a hugely important part of what we're doing. But we also had countries, cities, small NGOs, large NGOs, now large corporates, two of them, Orsted and Mahindra. We really wanted to show that the solutions that we need for the challenges facing climate, nature, oceans, waste and air were coming from absolutely every part of society and every country. And why that's important is that it's also then a platform for everyone. So if you're an investor and you're looking for Solutions, we have 7,000 solutions in our portfolio. The majority of those are commercial investable solutions, fear philanthropists. We've got thousands of nonprofit solutions and also some promising startup solutions that we can get you focused on. If you're a policymaker looking for ideas about how to deal with coastal resilience or how to do national carbon policy, or what types of international coalitions should you be trying to join, we have those solutions too. So we built it for everyone and with an open door too. So there's lots of different ways for people to get involved in the mission.

Speaker A: Very aligned with our, uh, goal here at the All Things Sustainable podcast. So thank you for laying that out. So you've seen now thousands of climate and environmental innovations from all around the world. Which solution most clearly demonstrates that meaningful progress is already possible? And are there any measurable results that make it stand out?

Speaker C: I'm not allowed to actually say one. I mean, I have one, but I'm not allowed to say what the actual one is. But there's one that I will point to. I won't call it my favorite, but one that we're very proud of. Last year in the air pollution category, we recognized Gujarat. The state in India have been working with the University of Chicago's Emission Markets Accelerator Program to apply the cap and trade model that Mint talked about with varying degrees of success over a long period of time in different geographies. In a carbon and climate setting, but apply that to air pollution. And as people will know, northern India, where I actually just got back from after living there for four years last year, it's in that stage of development that, where air pollution is a very significant public health threat and a very significant drag on economic development as well. And this pioneering scheme in Gujarat worked with industry to create incentives to clean up these pollution levels. Working with industry, huge and really rapid success championed both by business leaders and the state government. And when they were made a finalist for the Earthshot Prize, they really knew what to do with the platform. So everywhere we've been having events around the world, we did our awards in Rio last year. The team were on the ground going, you need to do this and we can help you. Then Rio's announced they're copying it. We're going to Mumbai, uh, to host our awards. The government of Maharashtra, home to like 115 million people, is now implementing the same scheme in the air pollution category alone. Our finalists are cleaning the air in cities and regions that are home to 300 million people. And those are through things that are good for business. That's technology solutions, policy solutions. It's really, really an exciting space where you can see all the drivers. Whether you're motivated by public health or by faster industrial development, tourism, whatever it is, there's lots of positive things happening that are also good for climate at the same time.

Speaker A: And for anyone who's not familiar, what are those different categories? You mentioned one of them, but

Speaker C: so clean our air is one. We also focus on climate, oceans, waste and nature. There are people working on these issues in every corner of the world that are seizing the economic opportunities that are cleaning up their balance sheets and removing carbon wherever they can. They don't have to be altruistically climate motivated to do that. They just need to be doing it for smart business reasons. There is action happening global south, the global North, East, West. Sometimes this debate, and whether it's about AI and data centers here in the US or politics in Europe or the us, we sometimes get a bit stuck, don't we? Unlike the challenge. No, the political debate is too hard and companies can't talk about this stuff. And, oh, uh, it's all frozen because we're so focused on these kind of central debate moments, which the moment is about AI, including the intersection with climate and energy, water. But more broadly, there is stuff happening in every corner of the world. People working in India, in Africa, in large parts of Europe, here in America. We're not sitting around waiting for political debates to be resolved before we act. So it's just something I want to keep reminding people. I was really glad to see that conversation earlier, kind of focus on that practical action because there's no excuse to get stuck over politics. It matters.

Speaker A: We've been talking a lot in 2026 about the sustainability risks of AI and data centers compared to the opportunities. This was a big focus at Climate Week NYC and the topic of research we recently published at S and P Global. I'll, um, include a link in our show notes if you'd like to read that. This balancing act also came up in our podcast interview at, uh, Climate Week with the head of sustainability at technology giant Nvidia. Nvidia develops chips, systems and software that power the world's AI infrastructure. And not long after my interview with Jason at Climate Week, the Earthshot Prize announced Nvidia as a new founding partner. During my interview, I asked Jason where he's seeing promising use cases for AI. Here's what he said

Speaker C: on AI. You know, there's lots to talk about. We are seeing our portfolio of finalists, which we're up to 90 finalists now and more broadly across the 7,000 solutions we have in our nominated portfolio, increasingly smart use of AI. We have a finalist in the air category this year, a startup called was the best name we've ever had for Fire. It's called Satellites on Fire, which is an Argentinian organization founded by a group of young people when they were 16 years old. They're now only 22. So it wasn't that long ago that are doing early detection of wildfires for business owners, for farmers, for large landowners right across South America. And these 22 year olds are now actively managing tens of, of millions, millions of hectares of forest area in South America. It's astonishing. They're announcing major deals with European insurance players who have obviously after the summer we just had in Europe, this is a huge focus they were starting really before they were able to use the kind of widely accessible AI tools. And now through their partnerships with insurance companies and with tech partners that we're connecting them with, they're going to be able to do incredible things. So we're seeing a lot of that. We're also seeing our partners, Amazon is one of our core partners who are now working with a number of our finalists about putting smart use of AI into their operations. So there's lots of exciting things happening, there's some big environmental challenges, but I'm also optimistic on that side too that, you know, we've seen huge Momentum stay behind. Renewable energy in the US over the last couple of years, when it might have been more troubling, because we need energy wherever we can get it. And that has kept the sector moving forward. And the debate around water, which I know is controversial, not all the data center providers accept the full charge sheet on water for good reason. But actually the focus now about what we can do to restore watersheds and the prominence that people understand water scarcity and the economic issues around it. I'll take that as a positive because a couple years ago, not many people were talking about water and what it meant for their communities. Communities.

Speaker A: I think what you've described, this momentum you're seeing continuing all around the world, in spite of what's happening on the ground in politics, is something we've certainly heard about on this podcast. We've seen it in Climate Week events popping up all around the world. We had our very first Climate Week in Zurich this year. And so when you compare these earthshot finalists that you're seeing, which ones are scaling successfully and then what are they doing differently than the ones that have promising ideas but kind of remain stuck at that pilot stage,

Speaker C: I think it's really simple and it won't be a surprise to your listeners or to the people in this room. There's not going to be a real market for sustainability premium where you're asking people to pay more just because it's good for the planet. You can make some progress with some markets and some investors or philanthropists that way, but to really scale, to really have corporate partners deploy your technology and innovation material, whatever it might be, across their supply chains, they want it to be the best product for their customers at the best price. And where we have seen our finalists be able to make that case just as strongly as they can make, uh, a sustainability case, then they're off to the races. And we're seeing that more and more. It's really something we were looking at this year with the selection process for earthshot. We know people aren't going to pay more. And right now, in many countries, they couldn't even if they wanted to. So to succeed, we're going to have to work with the economy and with the trends that households are seeing and businesses are seeing and make sustainable products, the best ones.

Speaker A: I actually heard something kind of similar from the new chairman of the earthshot Prize.

Speaker C: My boss, yes, Jesper,

Speaker A: and he said something similar, given his background as the former CEO of ikea. This idea that you don't have to be more expensive in order to be sustainable as sort of a false idea.

Speaker C: Oh, uh, and Jesper Brodin, who became our chair in March. I mean, he's, he's a force of nature, as listeners to your podcast will know. And he has been remarkable working with our finalists, traveling all around the world, meeting them, and he's giving them that message loud and clear that any idea that just because it's better for the planet could be more expensive isn't going to work. But he's really also getting down in the trenches with our finalists about how they're going to reach price parity, how they're going to make sure they can compete on quality. And it's exciting because our finalists really responded to that, whether they're large corporates, startups or whatever they might be.

Speaker A: So a lot of our listeners are big companies, large corporates, financial institutions. Let me just make this really connect the dots for them. Where have you seen a big company help an Earthshot finalist move faster? Not through sponsorship or pledge or philanthropy, but through sort of investment or distribution or some other method?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think where it has worked well is when the large company, and I'll take the case of Ikea, because we were just talking about it. We were working with Ikea before Jesper became our chair. They're one of the biggest purchasers of textiles on the planet and people don't have to think about that. But you're thinking about curtains and carpets and bedding and all of that stuff. They have huge market share and a lot of our finalists community are in that sort of space on sustainable processes or filtration of water or whatever it might be. They really want to do the right thing for their customers and for the planet as well. But they know they are a big, complicated company and they really want these solutions in their supply chain. But they have to engage super thoughtfully. If they see a startup that has a solution that they need, they know that they can't just go right. We're deploying that today. You're going to come on board. Small companies with great ideas or great IP can get lost when they're working at these huge corporations. So you have to have teams that are incredibly thoughtful and knowledgeable about the partners that they're seeking to engage. And we're really trying to be thoughtful about that at earthshot, because we can make connections to anyone and we have an incredible network of corporate partners and leaders that we work with. But we also don't want to expose finalists, especially the startup finalists with really promising ideas or tech to some of these companies. At the wrong time. Because if you try to deploy or try to do too many partnerships at once, they're going to get lost and they're going to lose momentum and that's what we can't afford. So it's being really thoughtful thinking about the experience of how corporate's uh, going to help a startup navigate through its supply chain process and just taking real care in that is the most important thing.

Speaker A: And just picking up on that, I wanted to ask about obstacles or adoption barriers. I mean, what do you see as the most persistent obstacle that's preventing proven environmental solutions like the ones that you're finding from reaching commercial scale?

Speaker C: I think sometimes, and it goes back to what I said earlier on, there are partners out there, corporates and others that are really looking to do the right thing now, not just for the planet, but for their investors, for their bottom line, for their customers and delivering better solutions. The solutions are out there. And I think this kind of defeatism, fear about politics, depending on where they're headquartered, what they can say about sustainability, making those sorts of claims, we're wasting a lot of time. And I don't mean just for the planet, I mean for their businesses as well. So on the other side of the house, this kind of in pockets and it's less, less. But there is sometimes this failure of ambition, failure of imagination, failure of leadership that we still see too often, not least because, you know, the earthshot portfolio in our community of organizations, we are the proof that these leaders, solutions are out there. We are the proof also that large corporate players, whether those are financial institutions, large retailers like Ikea, Amazon, they're deploying this stuff at scale, whether it's energy solutions that, you know, we have finalists from China, throughout South Asia. They're not waiting on debates in the United States before they plow ahead with what they're doing. So we need to seize this moment. The solutions are out there. And it's that kind of barrier in imagination that's probably the most important, important one. Um,

Speaker A: this year 2026 is the first time that the Earthshot Prize finalists have included corporations. And I asked Jason why now?

Speaker C: It's taken us too long, if I'm honest. From the beginning we've had countries, cities, startups, NGOs, international coalitions like the High Ambition Coalition for People in Nature. So we've really gotten around. But those large corporate players have been a missing piece for us. And the. There's probably a couple reasons for that, but the main thing is we've done it now. And this year we have two, we have Mahindra for its Last Mile mobility program. Mahindra, one of the largest car manufacturers in the world, out of India. Not a household name in the us but a household name. When I lived in India, I had Mahindra. It's, you know, everywhere. What they have done on the electrification of three wheelers in a relatively short period of time is revolutionary. They've crossed something we call a positive tipping point. Based on some research we've done with the University of Exeter where we've identified tipping points across all of our earth shots, where systems are about to tip irreversibly into the positive. And this electrification of three wheelers is one of the most important things that is happening in the air pollution space anywhere in the world. And what Mahindra has done, They've now sold 400,000 electric three wheelers. They designed an entire process around the owner driver of these vehicles. Thinking about their financing, thinking about where the charging stations are going to be, thinking about how the maintenance and support and battery replacement can work. And they're rolling out at scale. And they passed this tipping point where now they're selling more electric three wheelers than non electric. Delhi has mandated as a state, you know, home to something like 40 million people that in a couple years time you won't be able to buy a non electric three wheeler. So anyone who's ever been to Delhi, where I used to live, that is a big deal. That last mile pollution from these three wheelers that are getting through some of the tightest points for those deliveries and all sorts of things. This is huge. The other finalist we have this year is Orsted in the climate category. A lot of your listeners and people in the room today will know 20 years ago Orsted was one of the most fossil fuel intensive utilities in Europe and they made an incredibly brave decision to go 100% renewable, which they are today, and make beyond that. They're also the largest player in offshore wind anywhere in the world and have the largest operational wind farms in the world. They've got one in operation, they're about to have another peer group make one that's slightly bigger, but then they have another even bigger one that's coming on board. So they're really at this forefront and for us this was a really important thing in and of itself to recognize. You know, a lot of the big players in energy, not all a lot, profess powerlessness in the face of the challenges that we're facing. And I would say they're also professing powerlessness in the face of what we're seeing coming out of China, and are really running the risk of not only a failure of moral leadership, but a failure of economic stewardship from leadership for their investors. And Orsted shows that you can continue to generate very healthy revenues, support your customers, support industry, the economy of which you're a part of, and achieve something incredible for the planet at the same time. And create tens of thousands of clean energy jobs in places like Grimsby in the uk. It's a remarkable success story and we're also really looking forward to working with them, um, about what we can do to help them use our platform to encourage further leadership and also to expand into new geographies.

Speaker A: Great. Well, in the last couple of minutes here, talk to me about your roadmap. How are you looking at the rest of this year into 2027? And then we're really getting close to that 2030 goal that was originally set out for the Earthshot Prize.

Speaker C: Yeah. So we have a busy few months ahead. When we first were talking to Prince William about creating the Earthshot Prize and he gave us a few challenges, we said, okay, every year we're going to do this in London. He's like, um, we're not doing it in London. Every year. We're moving this thing around the world if we're going to do it. And we're like, yeah, that's a great idea. It turns out that's really hard to put on a massive public event that's broadcast around the world in a different geography every year. But we're doing it and it's definitely worth it. So we are in Mumbai for the biggest edition of Euroshot Prize yet. We'll be making some announcements soon about the global reach for the first time, that that event is going to have that most people in the world, we live in somewhere, they'll be able to watch it for the first time, which is very exciting for us. And we're also going to be hosting around that event a series of, of momentum action events where our partners, investors, corporates, are going to come together to make very significant real commitments to supporting the finalists that we've identified for the Earthshot Prize, replicating their plans and different geographies, whatever it might be. So we're working on that right now. We'll be announcing soon where we're going next year. But behind the scenes, the most important thing we're doing is I'd really encourage everyone and to have a read of the report that we issued with the University of Exeter on positive tipping points. Where we've gone through all five of the earth shots, identified 51 indicators, where you can see where we have an opportunity over the next few years to work together to push the economic trends, the social trends and environmental trends in the right direction, to make some of these things irreversible. Positive momentum. We talk a lot about negative tipping points, planetary boundaries, for very good reason. And our contribution to help making sure we avoid everything that we can on that side is to push for as many positives as possible. So We've mapped all 90 of our finalists against those positive tipping points and the 51 indicators. It's super accessible. I think it's a roadmap for every investor in the climate space, every policymaker in nature climate waste, whatever you're looking at. It is really, really practical set of tools to use. And we're going to use it to identify the gaps we still have in our portfolio of finalists and winners to say, what are the things we haven't covered yet? Where are the geographies? We're missing some of these big stories. How can we connect some of the things that are happening in energy space with some of the things that are happening in the nature space? And our selection process for 2027 is already underway.

Speaker A: Okay, so that's one call to action for our listeners, is to read that report. Can you close with another kind of call to action? We have a lot of senior leaders from many industries and countries in this room or listening to the podcast. What is one decision they can take back to their organizations tomorrow that would accelerate solutions that are already proven to work?

Speaker C: Well? We're halfway through New York Climate Week, but it's the end of Wednesday when we're sitting and talking, so I hope you'll forgive me and I won't descend into sort of therapy speak, but this work is hard. All of the work that we're doing right around the world, that all of you and your listeners are doing in their companies and firms and organizations, it's tough. And we rightly focus on the challenges and problems we're trying to solve, because that's our job and that's what we care about. We also have to step back and look at the biggest story in the world right now is not just the challenges we face. The biggest story in the world is that in every corner of the planet, huge things are happening, changes are being made. The solutions that we didn't know if they were going to be there a decade ago, they are showing up and they're showing up right on time. Maybe a little late in some places, but we can do a lot and we are achieving a lot. And I think if we don't go back into the organizations that we're leading and working in with a sense of optimism about what we can still get done, we're not going to inspire all of those around us who maybe don't work directly in the climate space within our companies or don't push these issues front of mind because they seem too hard. We're not going to inspire them to join this mission. So I'd really say don't forget to occasionally take that step back, keep a global perspective, keep an optimistic perspective on what we're achieving and know that you're not alone in what you're doing. And I know sometimes in a corporate setting that's kind of a weird thing to say, but like, let's just do it and support each other in this mission.

Speaker A: Well, I think that's a really inspiring note to end on. Thank you for sharing that message with me, with our audience here in the room, and with our global global podcast audience. Please join me in thanking Jason.

Speaker C: Thank you so much.

Speaker A: Today we heard the earthshot Prize CEO outline reasons for maintaining optimism despite the challenges facing the planet. We'll include a link in our show notes to the positive tipping points research that Jason referenced. We heard a similar message in a recent show where we had guest John Kerry, the former US Secretary of State who was a key architect of the Paris Agreement on climate change. Both Secretary Kerry and Jason from the earthshot Prize said the solutions exist to address challenges like climate change, air pollution and ocean health. Both said the public and private sector need to act with urgency to scale these solutions. Jason pointed to affordability as a key factor. He said, we know people aren't going to pay more and right now in many places they couldn't pay more even if they wanted to. So scalable solutions really need to acknowledge this economic reality and and that means offering the best product at the best price. We'll be back next week to continue this conversation about solutions. We'll be bringing you special bonus episodes throughout the week where we talk to the global investment community about investable solutions from the sidelines of the Building Bridges Summit in Geneva, Switzerland. So please stay tuned. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of All Things Sustainable. If you like what you heard, please subscribe, subscribe, share and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker B: And a special thanks to our agency partner, the uh, 199. See you next time.