# St Andrews Prize for the Environment

The St Andrews Prize for the Environment is a prestigious international environmental award funded and administered by the University of St Andrews in Scotland, United Kingdom. Prior to 2020, the American exploration and production company ConocoPhillips sponsored the prize.
The award recognises significant contributions to environmental issues and concerns aligned to the Sustainable Development Goals. Applications are invited from individuals, multi-disciplinary teams or community groups. The winning environmental project receives funding of US$100,000 and each of the two runners-up receive US$25,000.
The current Chair of the judging panel is the President of the Royal Society of Biology, Sir Ian Boyd having taken over the role from the CEO of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Hayaatun Sillem.

## List of Winners

List of winners has been taken from the St Andrews Prize website:

### 2019—Present

| Year | Region Served | Winner | Initiative |
| 2024 | India | Kham River Restoration Mission | Waterway management project aiming to restore seasonal flow of a river that runs through Aurangabad. |
| 2023 | Ecuador | Alianza Ceibo | Empowers indigenous populations of the Upper Amazon in South America to conserve rainforest territories and preserve local cultures. |
| 2022 | Costa Rica | Misión Tiburón | Community-based project to protect and restore blue carbon sinks in the Hammerhead Shark Sanctuary. |
| 2021 | Finland | Snowchange Cooperative | A landscape rewilding programme which incorporates indigenous knowledge to tackle ecosystems affected by climate change, especially peatlands, in the Arctic and boreal areas of Finland. |
| 2020 | Uganda | Conservation Through Public Health | A project which takes a multi-faceted approach to conservation integrating approaches addressing biodiversity conservation, health advances and livelihood improvements for local communities. |
| 2019 | India | Saathi | Using agricultural waste to create a biodegradable menstruation product for women in parts of rural India. |

### 2009—2018

| Year | Region Served | Winner | Initiative | URL |
| 2018 | Peru | The Mountain Institute | Restoration of an ancestral water system to tackle water scarcity issues in the Nor-Yauyos Cochas Landscape Reserve of Peru. | |
| 2017 | Kenya | Plantwise | Improving information dissemination to reduce reliance on harmful pesticides, increase crop yields and to improve food security. | |
| 2016 | Brazil | Liter of Light | An innovative source of light which involves refracting light from a solution in a plastic bottle to brighten homes and produce no carbon emissions. | |
| 2015 | Guinea | Wild Chimpanzee Foundation | A multi-level conservation project, which aims to protect the largest remaining population of wild Chimpanzees on the Foutah Djallon-Bafing River (FDBR) region in Guinea, West Africa. | |
| 2014 | Madagascar | Blue Ventures | Empowering local communities in southwest Madagascar to protect their marine environment and manage their resources sustainably by integrating holistic community-based health services within local biodiversity conservation initiatives. | |
| 2013 | Kenya | Elephants and Bees | Project developed from the behavioural discovery that honey bees can be used as a natural deterrent to crop raiding elephants. | |
| 2012 | Kenya | Lion Guardians | Thirty-two non-literate Maasai warriors in Kenya were trained and employed as community conservationists and field biologists. | |
| 2011 | India | Biolite | An innovative cookstove, which provides improved air quality and a clean economic source of electricity inside the home. | |
| 2010 | India | Bhaskar Sen Gupta | An innovative method of removing arsenic from groundwater without using chemicals. | — |
| 2009 | China | One Earth Designs | For the development of a high-performance solar cooker (SolSource) to meet the needs of Himalayan villagers. The SolSource 3-in-1 project aims to supply clean energy for cooking, heating, and thermo-electricity generation to high-altitude low-income communities. | |

### 1999—2008

| Year | Region Served | Winner | Initiative | URL |
| 2008 | Malawi | Ian Thorpe | The Elephant Toilet provides an innovative and sustainable sanitation solution which could benefit millions of people across Africa, and beyond. | |
| 2007 | Philippines | David Manalo | River, Fibre and Power Project providing sustainable lighting services in remote locations in the Philippines. | — |
| 2006 | Guatemala | Erika Vohman | Promoting the use of Maya nut in Central America. | |
| 2005 | Zimbabwe | Pump Aid | Creation of the Elephant Pump, a pump built using simple technology and locally available materials. | |
| 2004 | Peru | Conrad Feather | Deployment of GPS and other similar technologies to enable the Nahua people of Peru to map and better understand the land they live on. | — |
| 2003 | India | Bunker Roy | Founding of the Barefoot College in Rajasthan to train semi-literate and non-literate women to spread solar energy in remote Himalayan villages. | |
| 2002 | Vietnam | Monina Escalada | In collaboration with the International Rice Research institute of the Philippines, rice farmers in Northern Vietnam were persuaded to limit usage of insecticides. | — |
| 2001 | Kenya | George Odera Outa | A team from the University of Nairobi led by Outa developed a community education project to combat the environmental hazards that affect Lake Victoria. | — |
| 2000 | Palestine | Hikmat Hilal and Amer El-Hamouz | A team from An-Najah National University in the West Bank put forward a proposal to turn the waste from olive oil production into useful by-products. | — |
| 1999 | South Africa | Daniel Limpitlaw | Limpitlaw's work on further understanding the links between early mining developments and subsequent environmental degradation. | — |