Piers Park III project shared with Prince and Princess of Wales during Earthshot trip to Boston

The Trustees Boston Waterfront Initiative, One Waterfront, took part in the recent Earthshot Prize Awards event hosted in Boston by the Prince and Princess of Wales, sharing details about the Piers Park III project with the royals during a walking tour in East Boston.

Vidya Tikku, Trustees Vice President of Urban Outdoors, joined as Host Committee member, partnering with other local organizations involved in climate resilience work in Boston.

“I am honored to join The Earthshot Prize Host Committee and partner with my fellow leaders and activists to tackle the defining issue of the 21st century,” said Tikku. “As the globe becomes increasingly urban—more than 70 percent of the earth’s population will live in a city by 2050—it is especially important that we find innovative ways to reduce carbon emissions, fund sustainable development and transportation, and create new urban green spaces to reduce food, heat, and flooding threats and protect our most vulnerable populations.”

The walking tour took place in Piers Park I on Thursday, December 1. During the tour, Prince William and Princess Catherine were shown the abandoned pier that will become Piers Park III, along with the current design for the park, first shared during recent community meetings this fall.

During the tour, Princess Catherine commented on the importance of outdoor recreation for families and Tikku shared how the future park’s unique access to Boston Harbor could invite children to play in tidal pools along its edge. Bundled up against the wind chill that afternoon Prince William joked in response, hopefully not on a day like this!

Frequently requested throughout the community-led design process, the park design’s unique access to Boston’s harbor also includes a fishing pier, kayak launch, and beach.

Following several site visits around the City of Boston, the Earthshot Prize awards ceremony was hosted on Friday night. The Earthshot Prize, launched in 2021, aims to promote innovative and scalable solutions with the potential to stabilize our planet’s health by 2030. Over the next decade five winners will be chosen from around the world each year and awarded £1 million (USD$1,218,975) for addressing the following challenges: Protect and Restore Nature; Clean our Air; Revive our Oceans; Build a Waste-free World; and Fix our Climate.

The winners of this year’s 2022 Earthshot Prize are:

  • Clean our Air: Mukuru Clean Stoves, Kenya – A start-up providing cleaner-burning stoves to women in Kenya to reduce unhealthy indoor pollution and provide a safer way to cook.

  • Protect and Restore Nature: Kheyti, India – A pioneering solution for local smallholder farmers to reduce costs, increase yields, and protect livelihoods in a country on the frontlines of climate change.

  • Revive our Oceans: Indigenous Women of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia – An inspiring women-led program that combines 60,000 years of indigenous knowledge with digital technologies to protect land and sea.

  • Build a Waste-free World: Notpla, United Kingdom – A circular solution creating an alternative to plastic packaging from seaweed.

  • Fix our Climate: 44.01, Oman – Created by childhood friends who have developed an innovative technique to turn CO2 into rock, and permanently store it underground.

“Hearing how each of the 15 finalists have been working to address the threat of climate change was incredibly inspiring during the ceremony on Friday night,” noted Amy Eynatian, Trustees Boston Waterfront Initiative Project Manager. “It was empowering to learn about groups from around the world working to help their communities, and how together these kinds of innovative, equitable and resilient solutions can move the needle in protecting our planet for generations to come.”

The nomination period for next year’s 2023 Prize opened on Monday, December 5. To learn more about the awards, click here.

ABOVE: The Prince and Princess of Wales and Mayor Wu at City Hall

The One Waterfront Team