Nominations are now open for the Zayed Sustainability Prize.
The Prize fund comes from the Abu Dhabi Government as a way to honour and continue the sustainability and humanitarian legacy of the founding father of the United Arab Emirates, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Masdar, Abu Dhabi’srenewable energy company, managesthe Zayed Sustainability Prize. A dedicated team works on the Prize all year round.
Funding Categories
Health
This category recognises organisations that have demonstrated innovative, impactful and inspirational sustainability solutions in the areas of health that include, but are not limited to:
Ensuring access to essential and affordable healthcare
Ensuring access to maternal and new-bornhealthcare
Preventing and treating water-borne, communicable and non-communicablediseases
Reducing illness from pollution, hazardous chemicals and contamination
Organisations must also demonstrate a clear vision and long-term plan to further deploy their solution and scale up their impact, as well as inspiring others to follow suit by advancing sustainable and human development.
To be eligible for this category, organisations must be a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) or a non-profit organisation (NPO).
The Prize fund for this category is US $1,000,000.
Food
This category recognises organisationsthat have demonstrated innovative, impactful and inspirational sustainability solutions in the areas of food that include, but are not limited to:
Decreasing hunger and malnutrition
Increasing agricultural or other food processing productivity
Ensuring sustainability of food systems
Enhancing sustainable food production
Organisations must also demonstrate a clear vision and long-term plan to further deploy their solution and scale up their impact, as well as inspiring others to follow suit by advancing sustainable and human development.
To be eligible for this category, organisations must be a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) or a non-profit organisation (NPO).
The Prize fund for this category is US $1,000,000.
Energy
This category recognises organisations that have demonstrated innovative, impactful and inspirational sustainability solutions in the areas of energy that include, but are not limited to:
Ensuring access to affordable and reliable clean energy
Increasing production of clean energy
Improving energy efficiency and energy infrastructure
Implementing clean energy technology innovation
Organisations must also demonstrate a clear vision and long-term plan to further deploy their solution and scale up their impact, as well as inspiring others to follow suit by advancing sustainable and human development.
To be eligible for this category, organisations must be a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) or a non-profit organisation (NPO).
The Prize fund for this category is US $1,000,000.
Water
This category recognises organisationsthat can demonstrated innovative, impactful and inspirational sustainability solutions in the areas of water that include, but are not limited to:
Ensuring access to safe and affordable drinking water
Ensuring access to sanitation and hygiene
Increasing water use efficiency
Organisations must also demonstrate a clear vision and long-term plan to further deploy their solution and scale up their impact, as well as inspiring others to follow suit by advancing sustainable and human development.
To be eligible for this category, organisations must be a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME), or a non-profit organisation (NPO).
The Prize fund for this category is US $1,000,000.
Climate Action
The category recognises organisations that have demonstrated innovative, impactful and inspirational solutions producing positive results in the following areas:
Climate Adaptation and resilience building
Sustainable Land Use and Forest Conservation
Nature-based solutions for conserving/restoring ecosystems and natural resources or carbon removal
Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage
The solution may be an approach, service and/or product that can be directly attributed to a quantifiable positive impact pertaining to the areas mentioned above.
Organisations must also demonstrate a clear vision and long-term plan to further deploy their solution and scale up their impact, as well as inspiring others to follow suit by advancing sustainable and human development.
To be eligible for this category, the nominated organisation must be a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) or a non-profit organisation (NPO).
The Prize fund for this category is US $1,000,000.
Global High Schools
The Global High Schools category recognises high schools or secondary schools, from six global geographic regions that propose innovative, impactful and inspirational sustainability projects in the areas of health, food, energy and/or water. The proposed project could be in one area (e.g. water) or a combination of areas (e.g. health, food, energy, water and climate action).
The Prize is intended to encourage students to develop and implement their sustainability ideas and is not aimed at administrative projects or educational reforms at the school.
The award in this category is not given for past achievements but will enable students from winning high schools to implement sustainability projects in their own schools. These student-led projects must demonstrate innovative approaches to address sustainability challenges and inspire students to take active roles in sustainable development.
The application must be submitted by the students and supported by the school management. The projects must:
demonstrate how they meet the three criteria: impact, innovation, inspiration, as explained in the Evaluation Criteria section of this page;
be able to be implemented and operational within one to two years; and
benefit the school community and/or their local/regional community for several years.
In each of the following six global regions, one school will win up to US $150,000.
