Launching the Strong Earth Awards 2024, Advancing the Earth Charter

SUN^x Malta and Les Roches, togeth­er with The Earth Charter Insti­tute, the China Biod­iversity Con­ser­va­tion and Green Devel­op­ment Found­a­tion (CBCGDF), and the European Centre for Peace and Devel­op­ment (ECPD), have announced the launch of the Strong Earth Awards 2024. 

What are the Strong Earth Awards?

The Strong Earth Awards recog­nise stu­dents with a pas­sion for advan­cing Cli­mate Friendly Travel and pro­mot­ing sus­tain­ab­il­ity aligned with the Par­is 1.5 goals.

The Strong Earth Awards 2024 will grant 10 out­stand­ing stu­dents EUR 500 (~USD 540) each, sponsored by Les Roches and SUN^x Malta. 

This year there will be a Spe­cial Award of EUR 1,000 (~USD 1,080) in hon­our of the late Valere Tjolle, a pion­eer of Green Tourism. 

The win­ners will be announced dur­ing SUN^x Malta’s Strong Earth Youth Sum­mit (SEYS) on April 29, 2024.

All entrants will receive a com­pli­ment­ary copy of the Earth Charter from the Earth Charter Insti­tute, along with an elec­tron­ic ver­sion of the book Remem­ber­ing Maurice F Strong from ECPD (the European Centre for Peace and Development).

The Strong Earth Awards shed light on the Earth Charter­’s vital sus­tain­ab­il­ity mes­sages and the vis­ion­ary work of Maurice Strong, res­on­at­ing in today’s cli­mate-chal­lenged world. To learn more about the awards, vis­it www.thesunprogram.com. Explore the Earth Charter­’s prin­ciples and val­ues at www.earthcharter.org.

How do I enter the Strong Earth Awards 2024?

Stu­dents are invited to sub­mit a thought-pro­vok­ing 500-word essay on 

“Why is the Earth Charter more rel­ev­ant today than when it was intro­duced by Maurice Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev in 2005; espe­cially for tour­ism in Least Devel­op­ing Coun­tries (LDCs) and Small Island Devel­op­ing States (SIDS)?”

Please sub­mit entries as Word doc­u­ments to awards@thesunprogram.com, includ­ing the fol­low­ing: Full Name, Coun­try, Gender, Word Count, and Name of Uni­ver­sity (if a stu­dent). Sub­mis­sion Dead­line: March 17, 2024.

Judging will be con­duc­ted by a pan­el co-chaired by Pro­fess­or Geof­frey Lip­man and Joceline Favre-Bulle, Dir­ect­or of Oper­a­tions at Les Roches.

Pro­fess­or Geof­frey Lip­man, Pres­id­ent of SUNx Malta, said: 

“As the IPCC Report starkly reminds us, time is run­ning out to address the exist­en­tial Cli­mate Crisis; a point strongly under­scored by the recent TPCC (Tour­ism Pan­el on Cli­mate Change) Stocktake. 

“The Earth Charter, con­cep­tu­al­ised by Maurice Strong, is an essen­tial found­a­tion for com­pre­hend­ing Cli­mate Friendly Travel and fos­ter­ing much-needed resilience.”

For more inform­a­tion, please con­tact awards@thesunprogram.com or call +32495250789.

About SUN^x Malta

SUN^x Malta is a leg­acy for the late Maurice Strong, fath­er of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. Its goal is to advance Cli­mate Friendly Travel (CFT) ~ Par­is 1.5 and SDG linked. 

SUN^x has a core part­ner­ship with Malta’s Min­istry of Tour­ism and Malta Tour­ism Author­ity, to advance CFT, to cre­ate a UNFC­CC-linked CFT Registry, and to pro­mote CFT Edu­ca­tion. It plans to put in place 100,000 Strong Cli­mate Cham­pi­ons across all UN States by 2030.

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” Part­ner mes­sages from SUN^x Malta