Global energy technology company Enapter won the Earthshot Prize in the Fix Our Climate category on Sunday for its anion exchange membrane (AEM) electrolyzer that makes green hydrogen from renewable energy.

The company was one of five winners to receive $1 million to advance their innovative climate solutions in the Earthshot prize competition launched by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, in 2020.

“Each year for the next 10 years, we will award five prizes, one for each Earthshot, to those who are bringing hope for our future, and can protect and restore nature, revive our oceans, clean our air, build a waste free world, and fix our climate,” Prince William said in an opening speech for the award ceremony in London, broadcast by Discovery on Facebook Live.

Vaitea Cowan co-founded Enapter with the team behind the Phi Suea House, a project in Thailand that relies solely on solar and hydrogen for its energy needs.

The company says its invention is the “first scalable electrolyzer that replaces fossil fuels with green hydrogen” and will turn water electrolysis into “a universal and affordable product.”

“Winning this prize is recognition that we are going in the right direction,” Cowan said in an acceptance speech. “It will support us to go into mass production, it will boost us towards our goal of accelerating the access of green hydrogen for everyone, and it will significantly cut fossil fuel use by 2030.”

Build a Waste-free World

The City of Milan, Italy, won the Build a Waste-free World prize for its system that redistributes surplus food to help people in need and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from rotting waste.

Each food waste “hub” can deliver 130 metric tons of food annually to thousands of Milan residents, according to the city.

“The prize means both recognition and also a greater motivation to halve food waste by 2030,” Vice Mayor of Milan Anna Scavuzzo said in an acceptance speech. “Milan already shares food solutions with other cities all around the world, and winning this prize means we can do more for our community, but also help other cities to follow our example.”

Clean Our Air

The Clean Our Air prize went to an India-based company called Takachar, which has a mission of reducing the amount of agricultural waste that farmers burn after harvesting their crops.

The company developed a low cost, smokeless machine for use in rural communities to process and convert agricultural waste into usable products, such as fuels and fertilizers. Co-founder and CEO Vidyut Mohan says farmers can earn extra income by selling the valuable products.

“This award will help us tailor solutions worldwide and help us realize our vision to reduce air pollution, while creating livelihood opportunities for rural communities,” Mohan said in an acceptance speech. “In some parts of the world, air pollution reduces the life expectancy of the population by up to nine years, and we all need to stop ignoring this problem and act now.”

Revive Our Oceans

Best friends and business partners Sam Teicher and Gator Halpern won the Revive Our Oceans prize for their business Coral Vita. The company, which is based in the Bahamas, farms resilient corals and puts them into reefs to help bring back reef ecosystems that are collapsing. The co-founders say that their technique allows them to grow corals 50 times faster than they do in nature.

“This is an idea that Gator and I had while in grad school, and with the Earthshot prize, we will now be able to launch massive coral farms in every nation with reefs around the world and kickstart a restoration economy,” Teicher said in an acceptance speech.

Teicher called on government leaders, industry and media to solve for climate change and habitat destruction, saying, “the best thing to do for reefs is to stop killing them.”

Restore Nature

A program that provides landowners with incentives for protecting and restoring forests earned the Republic of Costa Rica the Restore Nature prize. The Costa Rican Ministry for Environment created the program to reverse an economic model in the country that encouraged farmers and landowners to cut down trees.

“The majesty of our forests is the seed of our developing model,” President of Costa Rica Carlos Alvarado said in an acceptance speech. “We will continue recognizing nature as our most valuable asset for advancing towards a carbon-neutral world.”

The next step for the government, according to Alvarado, is ocean conservation.

Earthshot 2022

Concluding the event, Prince William announced that the 2022 Earthshot award ceremony will be held in the U.S. “For the second year, we need to pass the baton to a country whose leadership is essential for all five of our Earthshots,” he said.

John Kerry, the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Change, accepted the invitation in a message during the ceremony.

“The finalists and winners that we’ve recognized this evening remind us that we do have an incredible ability to turn the improbable into reality, if we work together as part of our commitment to repair the planet,” Kerry said.