The Zayed Sustainability Prize is now accepting applications, celebrating and rewarding small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), nonprofit organizations (NPOs), and global high schools that offer impactful, innovative, and inspiring solutions for sustainability.

Founded in 2008 by the UAE leadership, this prize honors the legacy of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the UAE’s founding father, and his commitment to sustainability and humanitarianism. Over the past 16 years, the prize has awarded 117 winners who have made a positive difference in the lives of 384 million people worldwide.

Categories

Health
This category recognizes organizations that have demonstrated innovative, impactful, and inspirational sustainability solutions in health, including but not limited to:

• Ensuring access to essential and affordable healthcare
• Maternal and newborn healthcare access
• Eradicating epidemics (AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis, etc.)
• Preventing and treating communicable and non-communicable diseases
• Reducing health issues from pollution and contamination

Food
This category honors organizations with innovative, impactful, and inspirational sustainability solutions in food, including but not limited to:

• Decreasing hunger and malnutrition
• Boosting agricultural or food processing productivity
• Ensuring sustainable food systems
• Enhancing sustainable food production

Energy
This category highlights organizations that have demonstrated innovative, impactful, and inspirational sustainability solutions in energy, including but not limited to:

• Providing affordable and reliable clean energy access
• Increasing clean energy production
• Improving energy efficiency and infrastructure
• Innovating clean energy technology

Water
This category celebrates organizations demonstrating impactful and innovative solutions in water, including but not limited to:

• Ensuring access to safe and affordable drinking water
• Ensuring access to sanitation and hygiene
• Improving water efficiency

Climate Action
This category recognizes organizations with innovative, impactful, and inspiring solutions in areas such as:

• Climate adaptation and resilience
• Sustainable land use and forest conservation
• Nature-based solutions for ecosystem restoration or carbon removal
• Carbon capture, utilization, and storage

Global High Schools
This category awards high schools from six global regions that propose innovative, impactful sustainability projects in health, food, energy, and/or water. The projects could focus on one or multiple areas, including climate action.
The prize encourages students to implement sustainability ideas, rather than administrative projects or educational reforms. The winning schools will receive support to execute these projects, which should demonstrate creativity in addressing sustainability challenges and motivate students to actively contribute to sustainable development.
Student-led projects must meet the following criteria:

• Demonstrate impact, innovation, and inspiration
• Be implementable within one to two years
• Benefit the school and/or local/regional community for years to come

The application deadline is not specified.