Christian Kroll, CEO of Ecosia, walked into a Berlin notary office and committed €1 million toward something that doesn't exist yet: a Nobel Prize for climate and planetary health. He's betting the Nobel Committee will say yes.
Right now, the Nobel Prize recognizes achievement in five fields — Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, Peace — plus Economics, which was added in 1969. Nothing for the work of preventing ecological collapse. Kroll thinks that's an oversight worth fixing.
"When Alfred Nobel created the prizes, he wrote that they must serve the greatest benefit to humankind," Kroll said in a statement to the Nobel Foundation. "Today, this means protecting the planet we all depend on."
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Start Your News DetoxEcosia, a search engine that plants trees with its advertising revenue, isn't just making noise. The company has formally approached the Nobel Committee with a concrete proposal: Kroll's €1 million would fund the initial endowment. Ecosia has even sketched out three potential categories for the award — Pragmatic Governance, Scaling Prosperity & Markets, and Building Common Ground — though it's made clear it would have zero say over who actually wins.
The timing reflects a shift in how we measure progress. When the Economics Nobel was created 55 years ago, it signaled that economic thinking mattered enough to deserve the world's most prestigious recognition. A climate prize would send a similar message: that solving the planetary crisis ranks alongside breakthroughs in physics or medicine.
"An award for climate and planetary health would encourage people worldwide to build solutions, improve policy, and mobilize communities to take action," said climate activist Luisa Neubauer. The symbolic weight matters. Nobel laureates don't just get a medal and a check — they get a platform, credibility, and the kind of global attention that can shift how governments and corporations think about their priorities.
Ecosia even commissioned a handcrafted blue chair, identical to those used in Nobel ceremonies, waiting in a Berlin studio for the first Climate and Planetary Health laureate to sit in it. It's a small gesture, but it signals something serious: the infrastructure for this prize is already being built.
The Nobel Committee hasn't formally responded yet. But Kroll's move suggests something worth watching — the possibility that the world's most prestigious award system might finally expand to recognize the work that could define whether the next century looks like recovery or crisis.
