H.E. President of the Republic of Costa Rica Carlos Alvarado presents the Award for Humanitarian Energy to Dysmus Kisilu, Founder, Solar Freeze, Kenya | Credits: Andy Aitchison/Ashden
Climate solutions charity aims to focus on projects that catalyse green job creation through this year’s grant funding awards
Climate solutions charity Ashden this morning launched the 2022 Ashden Awards for climate innovations in the UK, Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Entries for the six prizes opened today and will close on 15 March 2022, with winners to be announced in the autumn.
This year’s awards are united under the overarching theme of ‘climate action at work’ and aim to help promote green jobs and skills. According to Ashden, widening energy access could create 4.5 million jobs in the sector by 2030, with five times as many jobs created in communities receiving clean energy for the first time.
Grants of up to £25,000 are available for the winning entries. Three of the prizes will go towards innovators in the UK, while the other three will recognise solutions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This year’s global categories include Energising Refugee Livelihoods, Energy Access Skills and Energising Agriculture. The UK-only prizes are for Energy Innovation, Skills in Low Carbon Sectors, and the Ashden Award for Greening All Work.
“New green jobs are a glittering prize in the transition to zero carbon societies - a chance to put cash in people’s pockets while upgrading cold and draughty homes in the UK, bringing economic opportunities to off-grid villages in Africa and Asia, and creating new green jobs in Latin America,” said Harriet Lamb, CEO of Ashden.
“The impact of the transition will stretch far beyond new jobs; everyone’s work will be affected by the huge changes ahead. So now it’s time for all of us to build a new world of work, one that tackles escalating environmental destruction, injustice, supporting people left behind by today’s economies.”
Previous winners of the Ashden Awards include Solshare, a house-to-house renewable energy trading company in Bangladesh that went on to become a finalist in the 2021 Earthshot Prize, and Solar Freeze, a cooling technology for refugee camps in Kenya.
Commenting on the awards, President Alvarado of Costa Rica, who spoke at the 2021 Ashden Awards, which was staged at the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow, said: “It is a great message that Ashden and the Award winners can provide. We need global solutions in terms of commitments, finance and targets, because it’s true we need to keep the 1.5 degrees target. But in order to get that – implementation has to be done locally, respecting women, indigenous communities, working together with them, empowering them so solutions come from people, not the other way around… If we get to share that kind of message I think we will add even more hope to the world.”