President Honors 10 Winners Of The 2023 Zayed Sustainability Prize In UAE

As part of the global sustainability efforts of the UAE, the UAE President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan honored ten winners of the 2023 Zayed Sustainability Prize on Monday.

The award was presented to the winners at the beginning of the 2023 Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW). In his Award Ceremony speech, the UAE President said that the Emirate nation has always been at the forefront of the sustainability drive and creating global initiatives for the whole of humanity.

the award was presented to the winners at the beginning of the 2023 Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week

The Zayed Sustainability award is meant as an encouragement for these efforts that aim at providing large-scale solutions to the different communities of the world as well as to give effective solutions locally.

Sheikh Mohamed also noted that this year is the fifteenth year of the Zayed Sustainability Prize and is a crucial year for the UAE as it is hosting this year’s Conference of Parties, 28th session (COP28). So the importance of encouraging sustainability efforts has become more prominent in the Emirates as the country is becoming a global face in the area of lowering carbon emissions and continuously maintaining its efforts to create a sustainable economy through strategic planning.

COP28 will be a global platform that will help raise a worldwide collaboration with both developed and emerging nations to keep carbon emissions controlled and to take effective decisions in this year’s agenda of restricting global warming temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius. 

The 2023 Zayed Sustainability Prize was distributed across five categories and it is meant to recognize the efforts made by small and medium companies; nonprofit organizations; and high schools from different parts of the world in creating impactful and inspiring sustainability solutions in the areas of food, water, health, and energy.

Each winner from different categories receives $600,000 with the exception of the Global high school category having six winners representing the six world regions and they get $100,000 each.

Since the inception of the Prize, around 96 winners have been recognized, and have also resulted in the development of more than 378 million people belonging to different nations like Ethiopia, Nepal, Sudan, Vietnam, Tuvalu, and Maldives.

The Prize carries the great legacy of the founding father of the UAE and it is meant as a reminder of his vision to impart the knowledge and wealth of the Emirates to deserving communities around the world.

As part of these efforts, the Zayed Sustainability Prize has been recognized as a great encouragement for social entrepreneurs, young people, and innovators belonging to different areas of society to create progressive, impactful changes to the planet and to its communities. 

Pointing out the efforts made by young people, the UAE President appreciated their mindset to be part of a larger goal-directed towards the sustenance of our environment. He also stressed the importance of molding these youngsters into critical thinkers and sustainability leaders of tomorrow so that our future will be secured in their hands.

The Global High School category of the Zayed Prize does exactly that by discovering young talents from different parts of the world and giving them a helping hand in creating developmental models in their respective communities.  

Brazil’s Associação Expedicionários da Saúde (EDS) secured the award for their Mobile Hospital Complex in the Health Category of the Zayed Awards. The Mobile complex provides accessible medical and surgical care for the indigenous communities who are in the deep areas of the Amazon. The main objective behind the innovative Mobile Hospital Complex was to reach some of the isolated areas and try to provide proper medical service to the communities.

During the course of six expeditions, they completed over 1,900 surgeries and provided other health services that led to a stark improvement in the overall health of the communities. They had also done cataract surgeries to improve the vision of the affected. 

Ÿnsect, a Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) from France won the Prize in the Food category for their innovative insect-based protein products and natural fertilizers. They had created an insect factory where insect species like Molitor and buffalo mealworms are processed using innovative methods to create high-quality, natural ingredients that will be part of fish feeds, fertilizers, etc. Ÿnsect has been responsible for improving the lives of around thirty million people in the past five years by providing natural and premium nutrition products to sustain different farming models that include fish farming. Their demo plant has a production capacity of thirty tonnes of protein on a monthly basis. 

Other companies like Jordan-based, NeuroTech had won the prize in the energy category for developing AI-based algorithms backed by a blockchain transaction system that aids in providing energy access to refugee camps.

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The development of these sophisticated energy management systems helps decrease the load of electricity and efficiently divert them to channels according to need and priority.

Local Environment Development and Agricultural Research Society (LEDARS) from Bangladesh won the Prize in the water category for creating a sustainable and integrated water management system that solves water scarcity problems in affected areas. Their innovation helped in creating smarter living solutions and access to safe drinking water. 

The Jury committee received a huge number of submissions around 4,538 and the winners were shortlisted by 40 experts from different areas. Some of the jury members were Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group; Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, Former President of the Republic of Iceland; Dr.Andreas Jacobs, Chairman of INSEAD, Jacobs Family Council; UAE ministers, etc.