John Murray lands book on Prince William's Earthshot Prize

John Murray has landed a book on The Earthshot Prize, newly launched by Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge last year, which aims to discover the best solutions to repair the planet in the next decade.

Nick Davies, m.d of John Murray, acquired World English language rights to Earthshot: How to Save Our Planet from Robert Kirby at United Agents on behalf of The Royal Foundation. The book is co-authored by Colin Butfield, former executive director at the international conservation charity WWF, and award-winning producer and director Jonnie Hughes. It will feature an exclusive introduction from Prince William and publish in the UK, Europe and across the Commonwealth on 30th September, and in North America on 5th October, alongside a landmark five-part BBC One TV series in the autumn.

The book will be published ahead of the first Earthshot Prize awards ceremony, which will take place in London on October 17th 2021.The five prize winners will each receive £1 million to scale their solutions to the biggest environmental challenges. 

The Earthshot Prize was inspired by former US President John F Kennedy’s ‘Moonshot ’. Every year from 2021 until 2030, The Earthshot Prize will find and reward inclusive solutions to five ‘Earthshot ’ goals: protect and restore nature; clean our air; revive our oceans; build a waste-free world; and fix our climate. John Murray said the accompanying book will highlight the urgency of the environmental challenges facing our world and provide readers with "inspirational case studies of the incredible solutions happening globally to repair our planet". 

Hughes and Butfield said: “The Earthshot concept is simple: we have 10 years to turn the tide, 50 ingenious ideas, and one goal – to save our planet. What we need is action and optimism. Our book reaches from the coral reefs of Mexico, via palm oil plantations in Borneo and sheep farms in Australia, to the forests of Kenya. It’s an explanation of how we’ve got to this point, and how – by acting collectively – we can fix it.” 

Davies added: “Earthshot: How to Save Our Planet arrives at a time when the environmental crisis has finally reached mass consciousness. It ’s poised to be the decade’s biggest environmental title, a major commercial book on climate change that will educate and inform readers globally, and help inspire decisive, collective action. This is more than a prize and a book; it is one of the defining social and cultural movements of the next decade, involving everyone committed to tackling the greatest challenge we face – to curtail climate change and repair the planet."