About the Unilever Young Entrepreneurs Awards

We believe the world will only succeed in delivering the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals if we all start to think and work differently. That means a real shift towards meaningful partnerships and collaboration across the whole range of players – from governments to NGOs, and big businesses to start-ups. Imagine what we can achieve together.

That’s why six years ago we started the Unilever Young Entrepreneurs Awards to recognise and support brilliant young innovators tackling the planet’s biggest environmental and social challenges, and to help them achieve scale for impact.

Since the launch of the Awards in 2013, we’ve reached over 5,800 inspiring young sustainability entrepreneurs and their organizations and provided tailored support and funding to 37 winners. From simple solutions with far-reaching impacts for child nutrition, to groundbreaking technologies to cut greenhouse emissions, these changemakers are challenging business as usual and leading the way to a more sustainable future.

Each year we provide up to eight winners with financial support to help them grow – with the overall winner of the HRH The Prince of Wales Young Sustainability Entrepreneur Prize receiving €50,000. All winners attend a residential Accelerator Programme run by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, followed by a year of mentoring support completely tailored to their needs. That could range from business support through to personal development coaching – whatever is most needed to help that entrepreneur and their business succeed. And where it’s right for both sides, we’ll support the entrepreneur to open doors and make new business connections – whether that’s within Unilever or elsewhere.

We know that the world’s problems will only be solved with the ideas and talents of a new generation of leaders and future-makers who are challenging business as usual, and who are the future of sustainability. We see a big opportunity to support, inspire, reward and collaborate with them, to help them scale and grow – both as individuals and as enterprises.

So, if you are working on an innovative and scalable technology or initiative – or know someone who is – which is contributing to one or more of these three categories, then we want to hear from you.