The Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Hub was confirmed as an official nominator for the 2025 Earthshot Prize last year, a global award aimed at recognising and rewarding initiatives which align with the five ‘Earthshots’ – Build A Waste Free World, Protect and Restore Nature, Fix Our Climate, Revive Our Oceans and Clean Our Air. The very best solutions nominated each year are awarded £1million to scale their work.
This provided the Academy with the opportunity to source nominations from alumni across our programmes – both UK based and international, as well as promote an open call across our broader engineering networks.
We put forward 25 nominations from across 17 countries. 5 Nominations were sourced from within our Enterprise Hub members. A further 5 were sourced from our global start up programme; Leaders in Innovation Fellowship.
As we look forward to learning the outcome of our nominations later this month, when finalists will be announced, we caught up with some of our nominees to get more detail on their work and what winning the Earthshot Prize could mean for them.
Meet some of the Nominations
Dr Lorenzo Conti, founder of Crover
Winning Earthshot Prize would provide us with the capital and exposure required to implement our solution across major grain supply chains and scale the impact of our activities to developing areas, where grain losses during storage and transportation exceed 20%, often reaching 50-80%.
Dr Lorenzo Conti
Organisation: Crover
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
When grains like wheat and barley are stored in sheds and silos for long periods of time, there is a risk of damage from insect infestations and mould. Long-term storage losses can be up to 20% and there is currently no single way to verify the moisture and temperature of grains being held.
Existing grain-monitoring solutions measure only one variable and have limited reach. Crover’s remote monitoring device provides real-time data across a range of measurements including temperature and moisture. It does this by using sensors in a small robotic device called a Crover. Similar to a drone’s wings in air, or a boat’s rotor in water, it uses a patented method to move through solid grains and build up a map of conditions within the grain storage unit.
Lorenzo Conti, founder of Crover and alumni from our Enterprise Fellowships, made his breakthrough when researching his doctorate in granular physics at the University of Edinburgh. His robot system allows farmers, brewers, cooperatives, as well as grain merchants, to identify adverse conditions in their stock, as well as running sampling operations within large grain bulks, halting the need for people to walk on the grains and risk their lives.
Dr Andrew Woods
Organisation: Catagen
Location: Belfast, Northern Ireland
Catagen’s aim is to clean and decarbonise the air, offering a transformative solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in hard-to-abate sectors like aviation, cement, heavy industry, and marine. It's ClimaHtech™ technologies aim to accelerate the global transition to net-zero emissions by 2050.
Catagen is a leader in energy-efficient e-reactors, reducing 2,000 tonnes of CO2 through green emissions testing. Its ClimaHtech™ suite, decarbonises the air with solutions like bio-hydrogen , e-fuels, and hydrogen compression.
Andrew hopes that winning the Earthshot award would expedite the commercialisation of products, boosting local job creation and retaining talent in Northern Ireland. This growth would help to position the UK as a global leader in the net-zero industry, stimulating local industries and creating jobs in energy generation, fuel production, and logistics.
Andrew Woods and the Catagen team
Winning Earthshot would help to scale ClimaHtech™’s technologies which can replace diesel and aviation fuels while using existing infrastructure, driving significant environmental impact.
Tracy Kimathi, founder of Baridi outside a solar powered cold room
Tracy Kimathi
Organisation: Baridi
Location: Kenya
Baridi started operations in 2021 by providing Solar powered Cold rooms to Livestock value-chains in downstream city markets with its pioneer project being at Burma market where it has since preserved over 1,000,000+ Kgs of meat via a Cooling-as-a-Service model, the startup has since then installed 11 Solar Cold rooms introducing up to 27MT of cooling infrastructure in the Kenya's Meat, Potato, Herb & Dairy markets.
Find out more about Tracy’s previous work
The high cost of equipment, such as a 5MT solar chiller makes it unaffordable for most SMEs, vendors, and pastoralists, limiting adoption. This limitation restricts Baridi’s capacity to scale its presence and establish a competitive footprint in the broader East African market.
Winning the Earthshot Prize would enable Tracy to implement warehouse storage to achieve a 20% reduction in asset prices through bulk imports. This price reduction could unlock access to over 150 MT of storage capacity within Kenya this year enabling broader adoption. It would also enable us to explore asset financing models like leasing or pay-per-use to lower financial barriers for users.
Armelle Sidjl
Organisation: Biopackaging
Location: Cameroon
Biopackaging is dedicated to creating sustainable and biodegradable packaging solutions that replace single-use plastics and paper produce from deforestation. It transforms agricultural waste - banana plantain stems - and wastepaper collected in cities into eco-friendly packaging.
Find out more about Armelle’s work
Armelle told us that 'Winning Earthshot Prize would provide us with invaluable global recognition, resources, and partnerships to scale our impact. It would enable us to expand our research, enhance production capabilities, and reach more industries, ultimately accelerating our contribution to tackling plastic waste and fostering sustainable practices worldwide.
Armelle Sidji, founder of Biopackaging
Through innovation, we aim to minimise waste and promote a healthier, cleaner planet for future generations.
Firat and Aygen Savaş Alkan, co-founders of Kybele's Garden
If we win EarthShot, we will take steps to scale our technology and impact, grow our team and strengthen our differentiating market position.
Firat Alkan and Aygen Savaş Alkan
Organisation: Kybele’s Garden
Location: Turkey
Kybele’s Garden develops sustainable, circular and non-toxic solutions with algae biotechnology for agrifood and cosmetics industries.
Algae are rich in pigments, proteins, and antioxidant molecules. However, traditional microalgae downstream processing methods, which involve solvents and higher energy requirements, are not environmentally sustainable. We offer an eco-friendly and nutritionally superior alternative by fermenting algae with bacteria and yeast. Our advanced combined zero-waste fermentation processes enable us to release valuable molecules from the algae biomass, enhancing the nutritional and economic value of the products with increasing bioavailability of algae.
Moreover, algae contribute nearly 70% of the world's oxygen production while capturing CO2. By expanding their applications in agrifood and cosmetics with our technology, we actively promote their role in carbon mitigation and supporting a more sustainable future.
Deepali Sinha Khetriwal
Organisation: E[co]work
Location: India
E[co]work addresses the issues of improper electronic waste handling by creating enabling conditions and incentives to unlock the environmental, social and economic values of sound e-waste recycling.
The informal e-waste sector plays a crucial role in e-waste management in India, handling most of the 4 million metric tonnes generated in the country. Workers operate in unsafe conditions and use inefficient processes. Every kg of e-waste recycled properly can generate 1.5 USD in economic value from recycled metals and 1.5 kgs of avoided CO2-equivalent emissions. Therefore, supporting their transition to better practices can have a significant transformative impact.
E[co]work introduces co-working facilities specifically designed for micro-entrepreneurs in this sector. These spaces offer access to tools and machines, safety measures, training, skill building, and formal market opportunities, thereby transforming the lives of collectors, aggregators, and dismantlers.
Deepali, founder of E(co)work
Winning Earthshot will help to spread the message about the interlinkages between products and societies. For example, how recycling can reduce the impact of extractive mining, or create green jobs with social protections. The multiplier effect of a prestigious prize can help spur innovations and inspire others to join in the overall mission to make electronics recycling safer, more inclusive and more circular.
Aditya Shukla, founder of Saltech Labs
We hope that winning Earthshot would enable us to expand our production capacity, accelerate R&D for new bio-composite and solar-integrated materials, and pilot projects in underserved regions. This would help us recycle millions of tons of waste annually, mitigate millions of tons of CO₂ & GHG emissions, and create tens of thousands of green jobs by 2030.
Aditya Shukla
Organisation: Saltech Labs
Location: India
Saltech strives to build a waste-free, carbon-neutral world by integrating innovative materials and renewable energy into sustainable urban development. The company transforms waste into sustainable construction materials and renewable energy solutions.
Using advanced recycling and composite manufacturing technology, they convert plastic waste, construction and demolition waste, industrial by-products, and agricultural residues into high-performance polymer composites for applications in various sectors.
Their innovative products, such as solar-integrated tiles and pavements, not only reduce landfill dependency but also generate renewable energy.
Aditya is an alumni of our Leaders in Innovation Fellowships (LIF) programme.
Jack Oyugi and Jez Lofts
Organisation: Vertical Lake
Location: Kenya
Vertical Lake has created a groundbreaking vertical aquaculture system which transforms organic protein production by minimising its environmental impact whilst improving efficiency, even in urban spaces – think hydroponics for fish! Vertical Lake’s system reuses 98% of its water, produces 15 times more yield per square metre than traditional aquaculture and vastly more for beef/sheep farming.
Vertical Lake are addressing head-on, the critical global challenges food insecurity, unsustainable farming, and climate change. By combining renewable energy and a closed-loop waste system, it achieves both net-zero waste and zero carbon impact.
Furthermore, Vertical Lake's model is not just highly scalable but inclusive. The project empowers micro-scale African farmers by providing open-source mini-modules, fostering resilience against increasing climate irregularities and driving local economic development. Its production of organic protein and bio-fertilizer addresses the global demand for clean, sustainable nutrition and agro-products.
co-founders Jack Oyugi and Jez Lofts
Winning Earthshot would amplify our ability to scale globally, accelerate adoption, and inspire systemic change in how we nourish ourselves as well as be a trailblazer for sustainable organic agriculture.