The Prince took part in a panel for London Climate Action Week, chaired by actress Hannah Waddingham in the Sky Garden in the City of London.
Waddingham described the Prince’s role with the prize, now in its fourth year, as “not just the poster boy, as it were. You are very much the engine room”.
‘Be bold, be brave, be creative’
The Prince urged those in the room, which included Earthshot Prize nominees, winners and philanthropists who have helped scale their ideas, to “be bold, be brave, be creative”.
Discussions in the past around environmental problems had been “very negative, very doom and gloom”, he said, with Earthshot intended to bring “hope, optimism and urgent action” to solve the problems threatening the planet.
He said: “This is the critical decade for change so impact is something I’m very alive to at the moment. I say to the team ‘Come on, what’s the next thing? What are we doing?’”
The Prince added that the 3,000 “solutions” and 45 finalists the prize had found and highlighted to date gave him “hope that we are taking the right steps to repair our planet”.
He hailed Charlot Magayi, 31, whose company Mukuru Clean Stoves won an Earthshot prize in 2022 for its work to provide safe cooking stoves, as “a beacon” and the “Queen of Africa”.
She said afterwards: “When he sees me, he always tries to speak some Swahili and says words like ‘mzuri’, which is ‘good’ in Swahili.”
The Prince’s tie was manufactured by Wilmok and is the second made from recycled plastic bottles that he is known to have from its range.