top of page

The Finalists

2026

Airbuild Inc. (Carbon Sinks)

Airbuild makes self-powered systems that use microalgae to clean polluted water while also capturing carbon from the air.

JUUNOO (Carbon Sinks)

JUUNOO makes building interior walls faster, cheaper, and more sustainable through modular wall systems that can be quickly installed, taken apart, and reused.

KBCols Sciences Pvt. Ltd. (Energy)

KBCols Sciences, an Indian biotechnology company working to make clothing production more climate friendly by replacing traditional petroleum-derived chemical dyes with natural, microbial color pigments.

Global Heat Reduction Initiative (Finance)

The Global Heat Reduction Initiative, a new measurement method to better track super pollutants, helping prioritize the most effective actions to quickly cut heat-trapping pollution and deliver faster climate, community, and ecosystem benefits.

Asia Initiatives (Social & Cultural)

Asia Initiatives originates climate action projects through a dialogue process where rural communities design menus of actions that generate “Social Capital Credits.”

The Week (Social & Cultural)

The Week, a climate conversation program across Europe and the USA designed to help everyday people better understand and talk about climate change in a simple, human way.

LinQ Energy (Transport & Mobility)

LinQ Energy tackles two big challenges in East Africa: unreliable electricity that disrupts electric motorcycle charging and the growing pile of used EV batteries.

Indian Land Tenure Foundation (Carbon Sinks)

The Indian Land Tenure Foundation supports Indigenous and Tribal Nations in the US and Canada by helping communities improve forest and ecosystem health, keeping the process in Tribal control.

Barefoot College International (Energy)

Barefoot College International works globally to train women in remote communities — many without formal education — to become solar engineers who bring clean electricity to their villages.

SEED (Energy)

SEED works to bring reliable clean energy to remote, climate-vulnerable island communities in India through its “Lighting Lives” initiative.

Tech Ascend Foundation (Finance)

The Tech Ascend Foundation helps lower-carbon water management technologies move from testing into real-world use, where many solutions usually get stuck.

The Farmlink Project (Social & Cultural)

The Farmlink Project embeds food recovery as a normalized and fundable national system, connecting farms to communities facing hunger across North America to reduce food waste emissions.

AlongRoute Data IKE (Transport & Mobility)

AlongRoute Data IKE helps ships travel more efficiently and safely by providing highly accurate, real-time weather forecasts for the ocean.

Sesame Solar (Transport & Mobility)

Sesame Solar builds mobile, solar-powered systems that can produce and store hydrogen fuel on-site globally where off-grid systems are needed.

The Inga Foundation (Carbon Sinks)

The Inga Foundation helps local farmers in Honduras restore severely degraded land in the tropics using native Inga trees to rebuild soil fertility quickly.

Flint Paper Battery (Energy)

Flint Paper Battery is developing a new type of rechargeable battery made from safe, widely available materials like cellulose (paper-based material), zinc, and manganese instead of mined metals like lithium and cobalt.

Delta Institute (Finance)

The Delta Institute is working across the US Midwest to make soil health and carbon a standard part of how farmland is valued.

xpand Foundation (Finance)

Xpand Foundation runs a community-led and smallholder-farmer co-designed carbon program in Timor-Leste that promotes intergenerational community benefits through restoring forests and planting trees.

Pollen Patrollers (Social & Cultural)

Pollen Patrollers addresses the role pollination plays in climate action and land-use emissions by working with farmers in Africa to make pollination measurable, manageable, and scalable.

LanzaJet (Transport & Mobility)

LanzaJet cuts aviation emissions by producing the first commercially proven, non-oil based sustainable jet fuel capable of a global scale, unlocking greater feedstock availability through diverse renewable and circular carbon sources.

bottom of page