Children's Climate Prize becomes a foundation

The founder of the Children's Climate Prize now forms the Children's Climate Foundation to ensure long-term and continued promotion of children and young people's climate and environmental commitment. Telge Energi instituted the Children’s Climate Prize in 2016 to highlight the perspective of children and young people based on the realization that it is the their future that is at stake.

The Children's Climate Foundation's purpose is to promote children and young people's efforts in environmental and climate work, both in Sweden and internationally. The Foundation operates independently of political and religious affiliation. The main task of the foundation is to manage the prize money of 100,000 SEK to each winner of the Children's Climate Prize. Telge Energi instituted the Children’s Climate Prize in 2016 to highlight the perspective of children and young people based on the realization that it is the children’s future that is at stake. Telge Energi's CEO, Johannes Boson, is pleased that the foundation is now a reality.

"Children and young people's initiatives and ideas are a crucial key in the work of change for sustainable development, we realized that when we started the Children's Climate Prize in 2016, and it is still our belief. Through the formation of the Foundation, we can secure a long-term commitment to young people's sustainability work based on the award and the platform. In this day and age, it feels particularly important to be able to create the conditions for, and lift young people's work for sustainable development."

As of 2020, the Children’s Climate Foundation will annually award the prize. The Foundation will ensure a long-term approach, as it is one of the many requirements that are set at the start-up, which also opens up the possibility for more partners to be part of the initiative.

"We want the prize to grow, so that more children and young people have the opportunity to accelerate and develop their initiatives and sustainability projects. Every year we receive lots of nominations within a wide range of categories and the goal is to be able to lift and support even more young people's great sustainable work. Therefore, we welcome the fact that more partners can be part of the platform that the prize represents," says Johannes Boson, Telge Energi's CEO and Chairman of the Foundation.

Back in 2015, Telge Energi took an initiative to highlight children's voices in the climate debate with the Children's Climate Conference. Then children from all over the world travelled to Sweden to discuss the climate issue ahead of the COP21 climate summit in Paris. Together, the children created a list of actions and requirements that they considered necessary to create sustainable development for the world and future generations. The children were given the opportunity to travel to the Paris climate summit, expressing their demands for Christiana Figueres chief executive of the UN Climate Convention (UNFCCC), and the assembled world press.

After seeing what children and young people can achieve, Telge Energi decided to award a prize each year to a young person who has made extraordinary contributions to the climate and the environment. The first Children's Climate Prize was awarded the following year to American climate activist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez.