2025 Winners – The Iris Project

Breathe Mongolia

The Iris Prize is awarded to an established project with the potential to be replicated and scaled. Breathe Mongolia is working to end Mongolia’s air pollution crisis and ensure a sustainable future with clean air and a healthy climate. This dynamic team provides public education, influences multi-level stakeholders, transforms policies and narratives, connects communities, and advances collaborative solutions.

Mexico

Viaje Al Microcosmos

The Stem Prize is awarded to a project that exists on a small scale. Viaje al Microcosmos is reconnecting the city with its river. They combine citizen science, art, and local knowledge to bring the Santa Catarina River to life. This work fuels campaigns for legal protection, large-scale restoration, and long-term shared stewardship, ensuring the river’s future is shaped by care, imagination, and justice.

Philippines

Project Lawud

The Seed Prize is awarded for a new idea that has not yet been established. Project Lawud is working in Saragani Bay to increase public awareness about the critically endangered Dugongs. This project is a bridge between science, community, and policy. It aims to develop data-driven reports to support marine spatial planning and policy improvement in the Saragani Bay Protected Seascape.

The Runners-up

The Iris Prize Runners-up

$3,000

The Stem Prize Runners-up

$2,000

The Seed Prize Runners-up

$1,500

In adition to their grants, each runner-up will receive an invitation to join CoalitionWILD’s 6-month Leadership Development and Capacity-Building EXCELerator program and monthly group peer-to-peer mentorship sessions.

Paraguay

Guerrilla Verde

Guerrilla Verde seeks to restore the relationship between people and nature by creating community and family gardens. The project includes producing medicinal and aromatic plants, native flowers, and succulents, and it seeks to generate sustainable income by creating agroecological nurseries.

Uganda

Regesoil

Regesoil aims to address the environmental and agricultural challenges of the Nakivale refugee settlement. Through vermicomposting, they transform food waste into organic fertiliser, breaking down waste into nutrient-rich compost.

Peru

Confidential

This project plans to implement safe training spaces for mainly indigenous and rural youth, promoting their leadership in defending water and the forest from illegal aquifer mining.

Nigeria

Smartel

Smartel has developed innovative hydroponic systems in response to soil erosion and degradation. These systems enable farmers to grow crops without soil, synthetic fertilisers, and 90% less water, all while restoring the environment.

Ghana

The Waste Gobbler

The Waste Gobbler addresses pollution in a heavily affected river in Accra by collecting waste with machines and floating barricades and working with partners to ensure its proper disposal.

Tunisia

Oasis Creative Lab

Oasis Creative Lab aims to establish a community-based feminist environmental creative space that documents Gafsa’s climate transformations, focusing on women’s and youth’s narratives.

The Iris Prize 2025 Shortlist

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How we choose our winners.

Each year, we award nine prizes to outstanding individuals or groups who best embody the spirit of The Iris Project – championing the protection and restoration of nature and the rights of those who defend it – three winners and six runners-up. For The Iris Prize 2025, we received over 1500+ applications from young people in 111 countries.

The winners receive grant funding, peer-to-peer mentorship and individualised capacity-building training to help develop their projects. Find out more about the capacity-building program here.

Judging this year’s Iris Prize was a powerful reminder that the most transformative climate solutions often come from those closest to the challenges. These young leaders are not waiting for permission; they are creating change, and their creativity, courage and commitment are exactly what the world needs to tackle the climate and nature crises. It was a privilege to be part of this year’s judging panel, and I’m looking forward to seeing how this funding can help these groups scale up their work.

Desmond Alugnoa, Co-Founder of the Green Africa Youth Organisation and 2024 Earthshot Prize winner, Iris Prize Judge