Funding the science for environmental impact
For science to make an impact, academia needs to connect meaningfully to policymakers, boardrooms, and markets. And for this to happen, science needs to be recognised, backed, and understood by the public. Doing so gives science greater legitimacy and enables it to continue to spur on greater growth, while reducing the harms, particularly to the environment, which unfortunately scientifically-accelerated growth also generates.
The Blue Planet Prize, awarded by the Asahi Glass Foundation, an independent non-profit organisation founded by Asahi Glass (now AGC), aspires to this important dynamic.
“We established the Blue Planet Prize in 1992 when the Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro, marking the first time that environmental issues were addressed on a truly global scale,” says Takuya Shimamura, chairman of the Asahi Glass Foundation. “Our mission is to support researchers who strive to address the imbalance between the benefits that humanity gains from scientific and technological progress and the environmental problems it has created, contributing to the creation of a society that can transmit the genuine wealth of human civilisation.”
Our mission is to support researchers who strive to address the imbalance between the benefits that humanity gains from scientific and technological progress and the environmental problems it has created
Takuya Shimamura,
Chairman of the Asahi Glass Foundation
One of the first recipients to be awarded the newly created environmental prize is Syukuro Manabe, a Japanese-educated American meteorologist. He was recognised for his pioneering work predicting climate change by numerical models and quantifying the effects of greenhouse gases.
This was a choice of some foresight. Some thirty years later, Manabe won the Nobel Prize in Physics for the very same research contributions which laid the foundations for our current climate models, with immeasurable impact on climate policy.
Every year, the Foundation awards the Blue Planet Prize to two outstanding individuals or organisations that have made significant contributions toward the resolution of global environmental problems. With its pioneering selection and substantial prize amount – $500,000, which makes it one of the largest of its kind – the prize has become one of the most prestigious honors in the environmental field.
Past laureates include researchers and organisations working on climate change, biodiversity, and sustainable farming. In 2022, the Fourth King of Bhutan was honored as a laureate for promoting the concept of Gross National Happiness, which emphasised environmental conservation.
“Our core mission is to recognise and celebrate those who have made significant contributions as a bridge between academia and policymaking,” says Shimamura. “We aim to support our laureates so that they can further expand the reach and impact of their work on policy decisions.”
Bridging academia and policymaking
Indeed, many of its laureates since Dr Manabe, have impacted many areas of conservation, significantly shaping financial markets, economic policy, and general climate policy to better protect the planet.
Consider this year’s laureate, Dr Jeremy Leggett. Leggett was the inaugural chair of the Carbon Tracker Initiative, founded in 2010 to help the financial community calculate risks of fossil fuel-related investments and align climate goals with business and investment.
“Carbon Tracker has made huge strides in the alignment of markets, capital and carbon targets,” says Leggett. “Fossil fuel investment - particularly for new oil and gas - is today in the process of collapsing, and we can see Carbon Tracker’s fingerprints all over this.”
But much more needs to be done, argues Professor Hans Schellnhuber, a 2017 Blue Prize laureate, director general of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. who pioneered the science of tipping points and the carbon budget approach which laid the scientific basis for the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C and 2°C temperature goals. Today these goals serve as the core framework for global climate emission reduction.
“The critical factor is time: while the scientific community has provided overwhelming evidence and valuable advice regarding the causes, impacts, and solutions of the anthropogenic global warming problem during the last three decades, almost all countries around the world have failed to implement appropriate policies and programs,” says Schellnhuber.
To convince investors and governments to act on the science, Schellnhuber believes that fighting global warming should be understood as an “unprecedented value proposition”.
“They [FT readers] should perceive the fight against global warming as the biggest investment opportunity of all times. Wealth creation based on large-scale extraction of mineral resources, as practised since the Industrial Revolution, will come to an end soon for many reasons. If our civilisation survives at all, it will be based on a fully regenerative business model.”
Without stopping climate change, there will be no viable future to invest in, echoes Leggett. And to stop it there will be a need for government action on climate that generates prosperity for all.
Our democracies today are greatly threatened by inequality, explains Leggett, so “there is a pivotal role for large-scale exemplars of net-zero-carbon action that deliver prosperity and cut inequality.”
Communicating the science
For science-based policy and investment decisions to endure and be democratically legitimate, publics need to understand and back decisions. Here too, both laureates emphasise the importance of communicating the science and its policy implications to the broader public.
“From my 40 years of experience of advising decision makers on anthropogenic climate change and discussing global warming issues with the general public, I conclude that the most powerful of all tools is an evidence-based, convincing, and beautiful narrative,” says Schellnhuber.
Leggett also emphasises the need to “show don’t tell” in communicating the risks and solutions around climate change, and to focus on exemplars of net-zero action.
Through its website, publications, and events like talks provided by laureates, the Asahi Glass Foundation has promoted public awareness and understanding of environmental issues. It has also developed a unique Environmental Doomsday Clock. Based on an annual survey of environmental experts, the Foundation announces the time on the Clock each year, reflecting the sense of crisis these experts feel about humanity’s survival. The public can then visualise how urgent the planetary challenges are. In 2025, the time was 9:33, compared to 9:19 in 2013 and 7:49 in 1992, showing increasing concern among experts on the deterioration of the global environment.
Recognition, support, and public engagement are all essential to achieving science-based policies that can help save the planet. That important change doesn’t happen on its own, but the foundation is committed to help continue laying the groundwork for change.
Research should not just remain in the realm of pure or academic study. It should serve as a bridge to society — something that can influence and even reshape how the world works
Takuya Shimamura,
Chairman of the Asahi Glass Foundation
“Research should not just remain in the realm of pure or academic study. It should serve as a bridge to society — something that can influence and even reshape how the world works,” says Shimamura. “Of course, there’s only so much our Foundation itself can do, but that’s precisely why it’s so important for us to support our laureates as they take on that role and help make this change happen.”