On 5 November 2025, at Rio de Janeiro’s Museum of Tomorrow, The Earthshot Prize announced its five 2025 Winners, each receiving £1 million to advance transformative climate solutions. As an Official Nominator, Global Fashion Agenda is proud to witness this year’s exceptional cohort, selected from nearly 2,500 nominations across 72 countries—a testament to the global urgency and ingenuity driving environmental action.

This year’s winners share an approach we support at Global Fashion Agenda: solutions that address root causes rather than symptoms. From Brazil’s Atlantic Forest to Bogotá’s streets, from the high seas to African fashion, these innovators demonstrate that environmental goals and thriving communities can coexist.

The Five Earthshot 2025 Winners

Protect and Restore Nature: re.green is pioneering a new paradigm where forests are recognised as vital infrastructure deserving commercial investment alongside community benefits. Already operating across 30,000 hectares in four Brazilian States, re.green leverages AI and satellite technology to restore Atlantic Forest at unprecedented scale, with plans to restore 200,000 hectares by 2030 and one million by 2040.

Clean Our Air: The City of Bogotá demonstrates how coordinated public policy can deliver systemic change. Despite a growing population of 7.9 million, the city has reportedly reduced air pollution by 24% since 2018 through clean air zones, Latin America’s largest cycle path network, and one of the world’s biggest electric bus fleets. The city aims for 50% GHG emission reduction by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050.

Revive Our Oceans: The High Seas Treaty represents one of the world’s most ambitious ocean initiatives. Following its 60th ratification in September 2025, this landmark agreement will officially enter force in January 2026, becoming the first-ever global legal framework for Marine Protected Areas on the High Seas—essential for achieving the vital goal of protecting 30% of land and sea by 2030.

Fix Our Climate: Friendship showcases how community-led, nature-based solutions can transform lives on climate change’s frontlines. From floating hospitals to mangrove restoration and flood-resilient villages in Bangladesh, Friendship amplifies the voices of those most affected while proving that locally driven adaptation is both possible and essential.

Build a Waste-Free World: Lagos Fashion Week stands as a powerful example of how fashion can be a catalyst for meaningful environmental and social change—a recognition that resonates deeply with our mission at Global Fashion Agenda.

Lagos Fashion Week: Where Culture, Community, and Circularity Converge

For the fashion industry, Lagos Fashion Week’s recognition as an Earthshot Prize Winner marks a watershed moment. Founder Omoyemi Akerele is a returning speaker at Global Fashion Summit, including for the 1+1 Impact Conversation with Samata Pattinson Akerele long advocated that “Fashion has the power to create jobs, preserve culture, and transform lives—that is why we do this work.”

Akerele’s philosophy centres on rethinking value in fashion. She reiterates how crucial it is to create “that balance, that mindful balance, between the people, the processes, and the environment.” This philosophy permeates Lagos Fashion Week. Since its inception, it has been designed around four UN Sustainable Development Goals: ending poverty, achieving gender equality, ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns, and taking urgent climate action. Through initiatives like Woven Threads, Green Access, and SwapShop, Lagos Fashion Week has embedded circularity, traditional craftsmanship, and sustainable practices into African fashion.

The recognition reinforces a broader truth: the fashion industry’s transformation requires solutions that are inclusive, community-driven, and respect both natural and human resources. Lagos Fashion Week’s people-centric approach—honouring communities, workers, and the environment—offers a model for the kind of change the industry needs.

A Call to Action

At this halfway point in the Earthshot Decade, we face an urgent reality: the certainties and ways of doing things we once took for granted are shifting. No industry remains untouched. As Global Fashion Agenda continues its work as an Official Nominator, we see these winners not as outliers but as blueprints for the systemic transformation our industry and planet require.

The 2025 Earthshot Prize winners remind us that effective environmental solutions share common threads: they are rooted in community knowledge, designed for scalability, economically viable, and culturally authentic. They don’t ask us to choose between environmental protection and human flourishing—they show us how these goals are inseparable.

For the fashion industry, Lagos Fashion Week’s victory offers particular inspiration. It demonstrates that our sector’s transformation can draw solutions from community-centered practices that have existed for generations. As we move into the second half of this decisive decade, let these five winners serve as beacons of urgent optimism—proof that the solutions we need are not just possible but already emerging, ready to be amplified and replicated worldwide.

The question is no longer whether change is possible, but whether we have the collective courage to support, scale, and sustain it.