Scaling Innovation Beyond High-Profile Climate Prizes

The Bezos Earth Fund has announced a new partnership with the Earthshot Prize to provide targeted funding to climate and nature projects that are not yet ready for large-scale commercial investment. Under the initiative, 48 projects will receive USD 100,000 each over a three-year period, amounting to USD 4.8 million in total funding drawn from the Bezos Earth Fund’s wider USD 10 billion commitment.

The projects will be selected from Earthshot’s global nomination pool rather than its annual finalists. This approach is intended to support innovations that demonstrate technical or community-level promise but lack access to the capital and networks needed to scale. By doing so, the partnership aims to strengthen the broader innovation pipeline rather than concentrating resources on a limited number of already visible initiatives.

Addressing the Scale-Up Gap in Climate and Nature Solutions

Climate and nature innovation often stalls at the early deployment stage, where ideas have moved beyond concept but remain too risky for mainstream investors. The Bezos Earth Fund said the new funding stream is designed to address this gap by helping projects move from experimentation toward practical implementation.

Dr Kelly Levin, Chief of Science, Data and Systems Change at the Bezos Earth Fund, said many promising ideas struggle not because of weak science but because they lack pathways to scale. She emphasized that the partnership with Earthshot is meant to turn early sparks of innovation into solutions capable of delivering meaningful impact across borders and systems during a critical decade for climate action.

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Leveraging Earthshot’s Global Innovation Pipeline

The Earthshot Prize was launched in 2020 by the Prince of Wales with the goal of accelerating solutions across five environmental challenge areas. While the Prize awards funding to 15 finalists each year, its nomination process has grown into a global repository of climate and nature innovation. Nearly 2,500 projects were nominated in 2025 alone, creating a substantial pool of initiatives seeking support.

Earthshot CEO Jason Knauf said the partnership reflects recognition that transformative progress depends on supporting more than just a small group of annual winners. He noted that the wider nomination pool represents an investable pipeline of solutions that can benefit both people and ecosystems if given targeted backing and exposure.

Supporting a Diverse Set of Climate and Nature Interventions

The new funding will support 16 projects per year over three years, spanning a wide range of environmental challenges. The first cohort includes initiatives working on sustainable proteins, low-carbon construction materials, biodiversity protection, carbon removal technologies and nature restoration.

This breadth reflects a growing understanding that climate action and nature protection are interconnected, requiring coordinated progress across food systems, materials, land use and ecological monitoring. By supporting diverse approaches, the initiative seeks to reduce concentration risk and increase the likelihood that multiple solutions reach scale.

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Philanthropy Focused on Deployment, Not Just Recognition

The partnership signals an evolution in climate philanthropy toward funding deployment rather than recognition alone. By combining modest but targeted capital with Earthshot’s global network, the Bezos Earth Fund is positioning itself to help innovations cross the threshold from promising ideas to operational solutions.

As governments and markets struggle to close climate and biodiversity finance gaps, such models of early-stage catalytic funding may play an increasingly important role. The initiative underscores a broader shift toward ensuring that climate and nature innovations are not only discovered, but delivered at the pace and scale required to meet global goals.

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