As the UAE marks the Year of Sustainability and this year’s Zayed Sustainability prize Awards Ceremony takes place during the critical COP28 summit, we had a historic opportunity to not only celebrate the amazing work that is happening around the world but to position the UAE as global leaders in sustainable development and clean energy.
Created to open the 15th annual Zayed Sustainability Prize Awards Ceremony in Abu Dhabi, we had to not only showcase the Prize, its winners, and its legacy, but also to address why the Prize is needed in the first place: the urgent need for action on sustainable development.
The Zayed Sustainability Prize is not just about shedding a light on the innovators of today, but for 15 years, has empowered communities around the world to learn from one another. That’s why we use the motif of a lantern that embodies Sheikh Zayed’s legacy, acting as a beacon of hope for others to follow. Lit by the lantern’s glow, former prize winners speak directly to their own communities, sharing their stories and giving them a chance to learn about the man who made it all possible.
We were asked to simply document the solutions that winners had innovated, but it was our belief that to truly tell these stories, we had to embed ourselves in the fabric of the community and gain a comprehensive understanding of the context and cultures of these issues. So, we spent weeks on the ground, working with local teams and remote villagers to understand the struggles they faced in order to contextualise them against the backdrop of these pioneering innovations. This saw our team travel to the depths of Myanmar, remote Pacific islands, refugee camps in Jordan, and to the heart of the rural communities in Tanzania.
