Cochin International Airport is the world’s first solar power airport. Its entire operations are powered by solar energy. The biggest and busiest airport of Kerala state in India, and the fourth busiest airport in India in terms of international traffic, Cochin International Airport became the world's first fully solar powered airport in 2015 – a project pioneered by Managing Director Vattavayalil Joseph Kurian.
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The 2019 Champions of the Earth and Young Champions of the Earth award ceremony will be streamed on 26 September 2019, from New York starting at 7:30pm US Eastern Standard Time. Find your local time here.
Programme
6:30 p.m: Cocktail Reception and media launch
7:30–9:00 p.m: Gala Dinner and Award Ceremony
View 2019 Winners
The UN Environment Programme is delighted to work with partners to recognize and celebrate the outstanding achievements of the Champions of the Earth laureates.
It is thanks to their generous efforts that we can continue to celebrate their success. Our partners support the journeys of the Champions of the Earth and Young Champions of the Earth.
Weibo has committed to increasing efforts to address environmental protection and sustainable development, having already supported several UN Environment Programme campaigns across its networks in recent years, including World Environment Day and the Wild for Life campaign.
The nomination cycle for the 2025 Champions of the Earth award runs from 2 to 30 April.
The Champions of the Earth award is the UN’s highest environmental honour and celebrates individuals and organizations whose actions have a transformative impact on the environment.
UNEP seeks nominations of individuals and organizations working on innovative and sustainable solutions delivering climate action. The 2025 award spotlights outstanding climate action focusing on solutions on methane, buildings and construction, sustainable cooling including energy efficiency, clean air, and forests.
Nominations can be made in four categories:
Selection process
UNEP staff and subject matter experts carefully select Champions from a global pool of nominations. The nomination process is open to everyone, and past cycles have seen over 2,500 submissions from around the world.
The selection criteria are as follows:
- Impact: Have the nominee’s actions resulted in profound environmental gains or demonstrated significant potential for replication and scaling?
- Novelty: Has the nominee done or achieved something new and innovative?
- Influence: How compelling and inspiring is the nominee’s story?
From grassroots champions and corporate leaders to political pioneers and research institutions, UNEP celebrates Champions taking bold action for our world.
Established in 2005, the Champions of the Earth award is the UN's highest environmental honour.
Every year, UNEP honours individuals and organizations working on innovative and sustainable solutions. Champions transform our economies, innovate, lead political change, fight environmental injustice, and defend our natural resources.
The 2025 cycle of the Champions of the Earth nominations is open from 2–30 April. The 2025 award spotlights outstanding climate action focusing on solutions on methane, buildings and construction, sustainable cooling including energy efficiency, clean air, and forests.
Champions of the Earth are celebrated in four categories:
- Policy leadership - Individuals influencing or advancing global, regional or national action through policy interventions to improve environmental outcomes. They shape the dialogue, drive commitments, and act for the good of the planet.
- Inspiration and action - Leaders taking bold steps to inspire positive change to protect our world. They lead by example, challenge behavior and inspire millions.
- Entrepreneurial vision - Visionaries challenging the status quo to build a cleaner future. They build systems, create new technology and spearhead a groundbreaking vision.
- Science and innovation -Trailblazers pushing the boundaries of technology for profound environmental benefit. They invent possibilities for a more sustainable world.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Champions of the Earth awards; since its inception in 2005, UNEP has recognized 122 laureates, including 28 world leaders, 74 individuals and 20 organizations.
The word “legend” is one that should be applied with judicious care, but few deserve the tag more than Dr. Sylvia Earle—a renowned pioneer of deep sea exploration and conservation so synonymous with the topics that she now has a Lego figurine modelled after her, complete with little yellow flippers.
Consider the titles, official and unofficial, handed to her by some of the world’s most prestigious organizations: she was referred to as her “Her Deepness” by the New Yorker and the New York Times; “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress; and, in 1998, the very first “Hero for the Planet” by Time magazine.
The internationally renowned marine biologist, ocean explorer, author and lecturer has logged more than 7,000 hours underwater across over 100 expeditions—including leading the first team of women aquanauts and setting a record for solo diving to a depth of 1,000-metres. She was the first woman to serve as the Chief Scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and, since 1998, has been Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society.
The long hours beneath the waves, only a few months short of a full year, demonstrate the astonishing passion Dr. Earle has displayed in her chosen field. Her special focus is on developing a network of areas on the land and in the ocean—global “hope spots”—to safeguard the living systems underpinning the global processes that maintain biodiversity, yield life-support services and provide stability and resiliency to ecosystems.
Dr. Earle’s achievements appear as boundless as the oceans she works so hard to protect. She is the founder of Deep Ocean Exploration and Research Inc., of Mission Blue and of the Sylvia Earle Alliance. She is also chair of the Harte Research Institute’s Advisory Board, Chair of the Advisory Council for the Ocean in Google Earth, and leader of the National Geographic Society Sustainable Seas Expeditions.
Her more than 100 national and international honours include the 2011 Royal Geographical Society Gold Medal, the 2011 Medal of Honour from the Dominican Republic, the 2009 TED Prize, and the Netherlands Order of the Golden Ark.
Dr. Earle embodies the spirit and values of UNEP’s Champions of the Earth, and her work will undoubtedly live long in memory and motivate others to follow in the wake of her ever-flapping flippers.
Dr. Janez Potočnik became a Member of the European Commission in May 2004. As the Commissioner for the Environment, Dr. Potocnik is recognized for his strong commitment to the mainstreaming of the environmental dimension in the development of a more resource-efficient economy, as reaffirmed by his recent call for a 'New Environmentalism'.
His leadership has been constantly emphasizing how global resource constraints should trigger changes in the way the economy functions and in the way humanity lives. The Commissioner calls for the three “I’s” — innovation, incentives and integration — aiming at enabling a shift from the present linear model of intensive resource consumption to a circular model, thus reinforcing the essence of a green economy that will generate jobs, create competitiveness, while protecting health and the environment.
Dr. Potocnik’s work also highlights the need to reduce food waste and supports the European Commission’s initiatives aimed at reducing food waste, resulting in the EU’s target to halve food waste by 2020. The 2013 EU Communication on Sustainable Food will not only look at food waste, but also at ways to tackle resource inefficiencies across the entire value chain, with the ultimate objective of helping the food system become more resilient and competitive.
