Abu Dhabi: The UAE’s top international humanitarian and sustainability prize, the Zayed Sustainability Prize, has announced that applications for the 2025 cycle are now open.
Small to medium enterprises (SMEs), non-profit organizations (NPOs), and high schools with sustainable solutions are invited to submit an entry for consideration in one of the six categories of health, food, energy, water, climate action, or global high schools.
The prize has increased its funds from more than AED13 million ($3.6 million) to more than AED21 million ($5.9 million). The prize will reward more than AED3.6 million ($1 million) to each winner in the organizational categories of health, food, energy, water and climate action.
Within the Global High Schools category, which is split into six world regions, each school can claim up to more than AED550,000 ($150,000) to start or further expand their project.
The six world regions of the Global High Schools category are The Americas, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and East Asia and Pacific. The prize will accept submissions in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese in order to encourage participation from a wider range of organizations and high schools.
For the health, food, energy, water, and climate action categories, organizations should prove that they are improving access to essential products or services in their targeted communities and are able to implement a long-term vision for better living and working conditions.
For the Global High Schools category, projects should be led by students, and must demonstrate innovative approaches to address sustainability challenges.
The evaluation of each submission for the prize consists of a rigorous, three-stage process. First, due diligence is conducted on all submissions to ensure that they meet the prize’s evaluation criteria of impact, innovation, and inspiration.
This identifies the qualified entries and results in the selection of eligible candidates. Following this, evaluations are undertaken by a selection committee consisting of category-specific panels of independent international experts. From this shortlist of candidates, the finalists are chosen and then sent to the prize jury who elect the winners across all six categories.
Winners of the Zayed Sustainability Prize will be announced at an awards ceremony during the 2025 Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW).