• The Earthshot Prize, a global environmental prize launched by HRH Prince William to identify, celebrate and back solutions to repair the planet, reaches a pivotal milestone in 2025, marking the halfway point in its ambitious ten-year mission
• Quay Quarter Tower, the world's first fully "upcycled skyscraper", is a Finalist in the Build a Waste-Free World category for reimagining environmental, social, and urban transformation through large-scale reuse
• Winners announced at Awards Ceremony in Rio on Nov 5, as one-month countdown begins

SYDNEY, Australia, 4 October 2025: Quay Quarter Tower, the world's first fully upcycled skyscraper in Sydney's Circular Quay that has set a new, global standard for building retrofit, is today revealed as a 2025 Finalist for the world's most prestigious and impactful environmental award, The Earthshot Prize. Quay Quarter Tower joins a historic coalition of leaders recognised for driving climate action and inspiring everyone to build a better future for people and planet.

Founded by HRH Prince William in 2020, The Earthshot Prize recognises solutions from different geographies, sectors and stages in their life cycle, and is dedicated to solving our planet's greatest challenges. The Prize in 2025 marks the halfway point in the Earthshot decade, as the mission gathers pace in this next critical juncture.

The announcement comes at a pivotal moment. The buildings sector accounts for more than 40% of global waste and over a third of greenhouse gas emissions which continue to drive extreme weather events. Yet new construction continues at pace worldwide, often taking precedence over more energy efficient retrofit of buildings. Quay Quarter Tower proves that retrofitting buildings that have stood for decades offers a commercially viable and scalable solution to decarbonising the built environment.

Quay Quarter Tower is an environmental, social, and technical achievement; an upcycled skyscraper that doubles its previous usable capacity and creates a space that redefines the experience of high-rise work, while driving improved energy efficiency at all stages of the building process.

Retrofitting rather than demolishing one of Sydney's iconic buildings -- the tallest of its time of completion in 1976 -- was devised and implemented by a coalition of architects, engineers, building contractors, and developers. Together, they transformed Quay Quarter Tower into a world-class feat of low carbon engineering, with Danish architects 3XN at the heart of the project alongside Australian executive partner BVN, engineers BG&E and Arup and contractor Multiplex. Retaining 65% of its original structure and 98% of its core, the decision to renew the tower rather than demolish and rebuild it avoided more than 12,000 tonnes of embodied carbon while doubling usable office space from 45,000 to 102,000 sqm. The retrofit increased the building's capacity from 4,500 to 9,000 people, and achieved the world's first retrofit of double-deck elevators in a premium grade tower.

With nearly 20% of global buildings needing low carbon retrofits by 2030, Quay Quarter Tower delivers a replicable roadmap. Its radical model of reuse has already influenced future policy in Australia and inspired similar projects in global cities including London.

It is this leadership, progress and future potential that impressed The Earthshot Prize during the selection process in the search for outstanding leadership for the 2025 Prize.

Now owned by Dexus, the project to upcycle Quay Quarter Tower was completed in 2022 and has since been recognised as World Building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival, winner of the International Highrise Award, and the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat's World Building of the Year.

Prince William, Founder and President of The Earthshot Prize said: "As we reach the halfway point of the Earthshot decade, I am truly inspired by this year's Finalists, which embody the urgent optimism sitting right at the heart of our mission. In just five years, The Earthshot Prize has shown that the answers to our planet's greatest challenges not only already exist, but that they are firmly within our grasp."

Fred Holt, Design Lead, Partner 3XN, Director 3XN Australia, said: "The demolition cycle is one of the greatest threats to our global climate goals. Quay Quarter Tower proves that transformation at significant scale is possible and, critically, commercially viable. We extended the life of a building by decades, halved its carbon impact, and created a more engaging workplace for thousands of people. This recognition from The Earthshot Prize reinforces that regeneration must replace destruction as the new standard. We hope that our approach can help redefine urban development, offering a blueprint to meet low-carbon ambitions as our cities worldwide continue to grow."

The new Finalists join a community of 60 Finalists who are making significant progress in protecting and restoring our natural world, including:

• d.light (Clean our Air 2024 Finalist), has transformed 200 million lives in Africa with their solar-powered products.
• Notpla (Waste Free World 2022 Finalist), has replaced 21.5 million single use plastic items with sustainable seaweed packaging, and 11.6 million in 2024.
• Pristine Seas (Revive our Oceans 2021 Finalist), has established 30 of the largest marine protected areas in the world, covering a total area of 6.9 million square kilometers, more than twice the size of India, and helped to create David Attenborough's groundbreaking Ocean Film.
• Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative (Protect and Restore Nature 2024 Winner) has helped bring the Saiga Antelope back from the brink of extinction, growing the population from around 40,000 to over 4 million in 20 years. They've also led the historic return of Przewalski's horses to Kazakhstan's wild after more than 200 years.
• Boomitra (Fix Our Climate 2023 Winner), has worked with over 10,000 farmers in Africa, India, Americas and Mongolia to adopt regenerative agricultural processes and remove nearly a million cars' worth of CO2 from the atmosphere.

This year's cohort were selected from nearly 2,500 nominees submitted by the Prize's network of 575 nominators from 72 countries. The 15 Finalists were chosen based on assessments done by The Earthshot Prize's selection partners and Expert Advisory Panel, a global group of more than 100 subject-matter experts with deep backgrounds in conservation, science, technology, business, finance, academia and policy.

As in previous years, the five Winners of this year's Prize will be selected by Prince William and fellow members of the prestigious Earthshot Prize Council, a diverse group of individuals dedicated to protecting the climate and our natural environment. The Earthshot Prize Council is chaired by The Earthshot Prize Board of Trustees Chair, Dame Christiana Figueres, architect of the Paris Climate Accord.

Members of The Earthshot Prize Council are Prince William, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah, Cate Blanchett, Indra Nooyi, José Andrés, Wanjira Mathai, Nemonte Nenquimo, Luisa Neubauer, Naoko Yamazaki, Ernest Gibson, and Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

Solutions selected align to the five 'Earthshots' -- simple, ambitious and aspirational goals but more relevant than ever before.

To find out more about this year's Finalists, please visit the website.