On Sunday, Prince William joined the stars at the inaugural ceremony of London's Earth Light Awards, an ambitious environmental initiative to find new ideas and technologies around the world to tackle climate change and the planet's most pressing challenges.
Actors Emma Thompson, Emma Watson and David Oyelovo presented the awards with Kate Middleton, 39, at Alexandra Palace in north London.
The winners include the Government of Costa Rica, which received the honor for a project to pay local citizens for the restoration of natural ecosystems, as well as the City of Milan for its Food Waste Center project, which recycles food from supermarkets and restaurants and distributes it to those in need.
Other winners are a land-based coral farm in the Bahamas to restore dying coral reefs: a green hydrogen technology designed to change the way homes and buildings are powered; and an India-based technology that uses agricultural waste to make fuel
William and his charity, the Royal Foundation, launched the Earth Photography Award last year, inspired by President John F. Kennedy's 1962 "Moon Shooting" speech, which challenged and inspired Americans to land on the moon.
The award will be awarded to 5 winners each year until 2030, being hailed as the most prestigious of its kind. Each winner will receive a grant worth £1 million (about $1.4 million) to develop and expand their ideas.
The ceremony took place just days before the 26th UN Climate Change Summit in Glasgow, which began on 31 October. William, his father and grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, are all expected to attend.
Earlier this week, William criticized the space race and space tourism, saying in an interview that the world's greatest thinkers should focus on repairing Earth rather than "trying to find the next place to live."