Winners of 2050 Sustainability Prize Announced

The winners of the 2050 Sustainability Prize were announced this week.

The 2050 Prize allocates £2050 every year until 2050 to incentivise and reward entrepreneurial Paulines who develop novel solutions for a variety of pressing environmental issues. 2050 is a key date for meeting various global carbon emission reductions.

The overarching goal of the prize is “to find leaders who can show us how it’s possible to become more responsible consumers and still have a very good life. The prize is designed to provoke more thought and action about the consequences of what we do, so we can make choices that are less damaging to future generations.

This first year saw an array of ambitious initiatives put forward by pupils, from greening the southern facing walls of school buildings to reduce internal temperatures, to rejuvenating disused and dilapidated old telephone boxes on Castelnau and Lonsdale Road.

First prize went to Miss Douglass’ tutor group for their plan to deploy an online marketplace that allows users to buy and sell secondhand clothing, shoes, accessories, and other items. The platform allows users to list items they no longer need and find pre-loved items from other users and aims to make second hand shopping more straightforward for everyone in the SPS community.

Second prize went to Dr Gaydon’s group who have attached a camera to the food waste area of the dining hall and used AI to process data of the most wasted food types. Finally, third prize went to Mr Hemery’s group who had devised a scheme for cutting down on disposable board markers by using a refillable alternative.