Two fashion solutions named finalists for Prince William’s Earthshot Prize

Two innovative companies working to tackle waste in the fashion and textile industry have been selected as finalists for Prince William’s The Earthshot Prize.

Launched in 2020, The Earthshot Prize is a global environmental award celebrating and championing innovators focused on solving our most pressing global climate challenges, and for the 2023 edition, 15 finalists were selected from more than 1,100 nominations.

This year’s event will honour 15 innovators representing six continents, including two sustainable fashion solutions, US-based Circ Inc., which has developed a ground-breaking solution to enable the recycling of polycotton fabrics, which make up half of all textile waste, and Colorifix, a UK company that uses DNA sequencing and nature's own colours to create sustainable dyes that reduce the fashion industry’s use of water and harmful chemicals.

The award will be hosted in Singapore on November 7, with each of the finalists in the running to receive one of the five 1-million-pound prizes to help scale their innovative solutions to protect and restore the planet. Each finalist will also receive mentorship, resources, and technical support from The Earthshot Prize Fellowship Programme, a year-long programme to accelerate the growth of their solutions.

The prize is centred around five ‘Earthshots': Protect and Restore Nature; Clean Our Air; Revive Our Oceans; Build A Waste-free World; and Fix Our Climate. Both Circ and Colorfix are nominated in the Build A Waste-free World category.

Commenting on being a finalist, Peter Majeranowski, chief executive of Circ Inc., said in a statement: “At Circ, we’ve put our heart and soul into our technology because we see innovation as a crucial component to addressing key drivers of the climate crisis. So, to have our work recognised by The Earthshot Prize is deeply validating.

“With the support of the fellowship program, we look forward to the opportunity to further our impact and continue to support solution-oriented change within the fashion industry.”