Applications open for the fourth Lush Spring Prize on 5th February 2021.
On February 5th 2021, the Lush Spring Prize will open its virtual doors to applications from around the world. The search for a Lush Customer Judge also begins!
People all over the world are developing and remembering ways to live in cooperation with nature and each other. They are resisting further damage, restoring ecosystems, generating renewable resources, nurturing solidarity and building health, wholeness and resilience. The Lush Spring Prize supports and celebrates their work.
As a biennial £200,000 fund, the Spring Prize welcomes applications from any group working to regenerate environmental and/or social systems. Groups can apply in one of four categories: Intentional Award – for great new ideas and projects up to 1 year old, to help build knowledge and a solid foundation from which to grow.
Young Award – for projects or organisations that are 1-5 years old, to help develop their environmental and social regeneration work.
Established Award – for organisations that have worked towards regeneration for 5+ years, to help share knowledge and inspire more people and ideas.
Influence Award – for local, national or international organisations and networks that have a core focus on campaigning or lobbying to influence policy, regulation or public opinion in support of regeneration.
The 2021 Spring Prize is also adding an option for groups to be nominated to apply.
In some contexts, it can be less culturally appropriate to put one’s own group forward for a prize. That’s why the Spring Prize is now welcoming others to nominate groups. Those groups will then be invited to fill in an application form. People are invited to nominate groups from 5th February 2021 until 14th March 2021. Groups can apply to the Spring Prize from 5th February 2021 until 31st March 2021.
Searching for a Customer Judge
Each prize year, the Spring Prize team welcomes one Lush customer onto the Spring Prize judging panel. This Lush customer works with the other judges to choose the winners from a shortlist of around 50 Spring Prize applications. Spring Prize applications are always filled with inspiring stories and rich wisdom. Lush customer judges have the opportunity to learn directly from the voices of regenerative designers all over the world. Lush customers can register their interest in joining the judging panel from February 5th 2021 to 27th February 2021, by completing this form.
For me, a healed world will be one that connects us all in deeper ways. That we don’t only worry about who we are and where we were raised and brought up, but we can connect to a deeper sense of self – a relationship. We can connect to our humanity in a deeper way. A healed world would be one where everything is in abundance – not only the resources that we touch and see, but also the things we don’t see.
Previous groups who have received a prize
The Spring Prize has run for three cycles, and has welcomed over 700 applications from every continent apart from Antarctica. Previous Spring Prize winners are listed on the Spring Prize website alongside shortlisted projects. They demonstrate the variety of approaches that can be taken to create a more regenerative society, from restoring degraded landscapes to creating platforms that give a voice to marginalised communities. Examples include:
International Permaculture Education Network Based in the UK and Australia, the International Permaculture Education Network (IPEN) aims to increase the coherence and effectiveness of permaculture education globally. IPEN works across Europe and globally to create new education resources, support demonstration projects and teacher training, develop new core courses and model curricula, and share permaculture educational resources widely in many languages.
YICE Uganda YICE Uganda works with rural and refugee communities in Uganda to design and implement permaculture systems. They have created over 30 permaculture gardens in the Bukompe refugee settlement, improving nutrition and increasing income for hundreds of people in just one camp. After receiving accolades for their boundary-pushing work, they have been invited to expand their permaculture training program into other refugee settlements. They are also in discussion with the department of education in Uganda to have permaculture written onto the high school curriculum, which would be a significant step forward toward bringing agroecology into the mainstream.
Alianza Ceibo is comprised of members from four indigenous nations in the western Amazon that are together building a holistic movement to prevent the destruction of their cultures and rainforest territories.
The Alliance was created in 2014 in response to oil fields polluting local water sources. In the process of building rainwater catchment systems (to store water for irrigation and other uses), they learned of common threats facing all Ecuadorian Amazon Indigenous nations. Believing that they are stronger together, Alianza Ceibo started a movement to protect their land, create medicinal plant gardens and ceremonial spaces, create solutions to the destruction of local forests, and build solar energy in communities.
Notes to the editors
Lush
www.lush.com
The Prize is funded by Lush, a campaigning company with over 900 shops spanning 49 countries. Lush has provided funding for regenerative projects through the Re:Fund (previously the Sustainable Lush Fund) since 2010.
Ethical Consumer
www.ethicalconsumer.org
The Prize is coordinated by Ethical Consumer, a non-profit multi-stakeholder co- operative in the UK. Ethical Consumer’s research and publishing supports consumer power to generate positive impacts for the environment, people, animals and society.
Contact details:
Contact the Spring Prize Team (Anna Clayton, Clare Carlile and Francesca de la Torre at Ethical Consumer) by email:
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