The jury for the 2022 Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation has awarded the award to 45-year-old English former sailor and social entrepreneur, Ellen MacArthur, “for being a benchmark in the fight for a better use of natural resources and for accelerating the transition towards a circular economy”. The president of the jury, Gonzalo Suárez Pertierra, announced it this morning in Oviedo.
The foundation, named after the winner, was created in 2010 with the intention of accelerating the transition to circular economyr. The objective of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation is to build a regenerative and restorative economy together with different governments, companies and academies.
The jury for this Award – convened by the Princess of Asturias Foundation – was chaired by Gustavo Suárez Pertierra and made up of Pedro Alonso Fernández, Eugenia Bieto Caubet, Francisco de Paula Bisbal Pons, Andrés Conde Solé, Laura Díaz Anadón, Beatriz Domínguez-Gil González , Enrique FernándezMiranda y Lozana, Duke of Fernández-Miranda, Luis García Montero, Cristina Garmendia Mendizábal, Mónica Margarit Ribalta, Sophie Muller, Sami Naïr, Juan Carlos del Olmo Castillejos, Ana Pastor Julián, Ignacio Villaverde Menéndez and Gloria Fernández-Lomana García ( Secretary).
This candidacy has been proposed by Charo Izquierdo, CEO of Tornado Acciones de Comunicación (Spain).
Ellen Patricia MacArthur was born in Whatstandwell (Derbyshire, England) on July 8, 1976. A professional sailor, in 2005 she made history by completing the fastest solo round-the-world race by any sailor. In 2003 she founded the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust, which helps young people with cancer overcome their problems through navigation. In 2010 she created the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to change the production and consumption habits of the world economy and accelerate the transition to the so-called circular economy.
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The circular economy proposes a systemic change in industrial production for a better use of resources, based on the reduction, reuse and recycling of materials. It is one of the most important models of struggle in favor of sustainable development and currently has a relevant weight in the agendas of governments, companies and international organizations. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has become a benchmark in the fight for a better use of resources, by introducing the principles of the circular economy in the mission of these institutions. She promotes what she calls systemic initiatives within the Mainstream project, in collaboration with the World Economic Fund. Its main areas of research and participation are four: the food initiative, which brings together and stimulates the key players in the sector to make the food production and consumption system sustainable; the New Plastics Economy initiative, which seeks to reduce the use of this material; In 2017, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation published the report A new textile economy: redesigning the future of fashion, the seed of the Make Fashion Circular campaign, which it presented in 2018, together with designer Stella McCartney and the support of other clothing firms, which analyzes and promotes the need for transformation towards a system that uses better materials, promotes sustainable production and encourages the reuse of resources within the textile sector; and lastly, the fight against climate change through the principles of the circular economy to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases and other polluting elements. In addition, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation offers a series of information resources and educational platforms such as Circulytics, aimed at companies, or Circular Economy in Cities with keys for public agents. It organizes meetings and outreach and training activities to spread its ideas and objectives. It also publishes freely available reports and programs, such as the Toolkit for Policymakers or the ResCoM project, with the same goal.
MacArthur is a member of the Club of Rome and a board member of the Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy in collaboration with the World Economic Forum. She is a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (2005) and a Dame of the French Legion of Honor (2008). In 2017 the Ellen MacArthur Foundation created the Innovation Prize to reward initiatives aimed at reducing plastics.