Blue Earth Summit has today opened entries for BE:IMPACT, a new prize fund for small and mid-sized UK charities, offering a £10,000 top prize and £1,000 to each of five runners-up, funded by Founding Partner The Kindness Forecast and awarded at a live final on the Main Stage at Woolwich Works on Thursday 15 October 2026.
Lasting progress depends on those who act where profit cannot, and BE:IMPACT exists to make sure their stories get told. The impact is already there: charities across the UK are delivering extraordinary, measurable work. What is missing is the telling of it. Organisations consumed by delivery rarely have the capacity to describe what they have achieved, and untold stories do not grow; without visibility a campaign cannot bring the public with it, shift hearts and minds, or attract the funding that would let it scale.
The award therefore recognises work already being delivered on the ground, and the funding is intended primarily to sustain and extend that work. The storytelling support runs alongside it: over the following year the winner will develop a campaign with the programme’s mentors and a selected impact producer, to a campaign film to be shown at Blue Earth Summit in 2027.
This October, six finalists, selected across five impact categories, will pitch live on the Main Stage, where a single winner will be determined by a combination of live audience voting and expert judges scores, the same format used by the BE:100, the Summit’s established pitch competition for planet-positive businesses, and the same stage on which it takes place.
Opening night screening
Blue Earth Summit 2026 will open with a screening of KULEANA, a feature documentary on the global plastic pollution crisis directed and produced by Georgia Scott for GroundTruth Productions, narrated by Woody Harrelson and executive produced by Laura Louie Harrelson and Olivia Harrison.
The film uses Hawai’i as the lens on a global issue, bringing together athletes including Kai Lenny, Kolten Wong, Kimi Werner and Mike Coots with marine scientists from the University of Hawai’i and NOAA. Since premiering at the 45th Hawai’i International Film Festival in October 2025 it has been recognised across the international environmental film circuit, including with the Producer Vision Award at the Blue Water Film Festival.
Kuleana is a Hawaiian word meaning responsibility, and the screening reflects the central premise of BE:IMPACT itself: that effective storytelling materially increases the reach, funding and influence available to organisations working on environmental and social issues. Further details, including timings and participating filmmakers and contributors, will be announced ahead of the Summit.
“Where BE:100 backs business to deliver for nature, BE:IMPACT celebrates those who advocate where profit cannot,” said Jon Berry, Founding Partner of The Kindness Forecast. “It runs in the same format and on the same Main Stage, giving small and mid-sized charities the same platform as the world’s leading planet-positive startups.”
“The organisations pitching are fighting on every front, ecological, economic, social, often with very little resource and almost no platform,” Berry added. “Kindness is never passive. A single act of it can begin a chain reaction that ends in visibility, collective support and action.”
A short impact film about The Kindness Forecast will be screened on the Main Stage ahead of the pitches.
Will Hayler, co-founder and CEO of Blue Earth, said: “Blue Earth has always been a platform for other people’s ideas as much as our own, and storytelling is how those ideas actually travel. A film can put an audience inside a problem they would never otherwise see, and so can a charity with sixty seconds and something urgent to say. The scale is different, the mechanism is identical. That is why 2026 opens with KULEANA and why BE:IMPACT puts six charities on our Main Stage with £15,000 and a room full of funders behind them. It’s unmissable.”
“BE:100 is a proven format for driving funding into game-changing businesses, to benefit people and planet, so Blue Earth Summit was the obvious home for this campaign from The Kindness Forecast, developed with Rosie Riley, to do the same for charities delivering vital impact on the ground,” said Deborah Brewer, Impact Producer and producer of BE:IMPACT.
“Starting at the grassroots we can connect charities driving that action with funders, impact partners and storytellers, connecting story to capital to action, and translating the power of storytelling into growing, tangible impact for those who deserve it most.”
Judging
Entries are assessed against six criteria: innovation and creativity; demonstrable impact; partnerships and collaboration; community engagement; policy influence and systems change; and representation of underserved people and places. Alongside the substance of what is submitted, judges also weigh the creativity of the submission itself, on the basis that how an organisation chooses to present its work is a signal of character and ingenuity in its own right.
Judging is conducted in two stages: a shortlisting panel scores digital entries and supporting material during the application period in September, before a live, expert panel scores the final pitches on 15 October at the Summit, with those scores combined with the audience vote to determine the winner.
Awards and finalist benefits
The winner receives £10,000 in unrestricted funding, to be deployed as the organisation sees fit, together with Main Stage visibility at Blue Earth Summit, a dedicated profile across Blue Earth Summit and Kindness Forecast channels, press exposure through the BE:IMPACT partner network, and the opportunity to work with selected impact storytelling mentors to bring the winning campaign to life ahead of its release at Blue Earth Summit in 2027.
Each of the five runners-up receives £1,000 in unrestricted funding, bringing the total prize fund to £15,000.
All shortlisted finalists receive recognition on the official BE:IMPACT Shortlist, digital assets to promote their nomination, full access to Blue Earth Summit on 15 October, and visibility with the Blue Earth investor and funder network.
Finalists also gain access to a pool of mentors offering support across impact strategy and funding, film production, advertising and marketing; specialist expertise ordinarily available only to organisations with institutional budgets. Awards are made as unrestricted funding, but the programme as a whole is built to strengthen how these organisations tell their story, on the basis that the capability outlasts the prize.
Eligibility and entry
Entries are open now via the online application form, where full entry requirements are set out, and close on 21 September 2026. Applicants select one of five categories: Just Economies & Social Equity; Resilient Communities; Conservation & Restoration; Rights to Nature; and Creative Cultures.
To be eligible, organisations must be registered with the Charity Commission in the United Kingdom, report annual income of between £5,000 and £1,000,000, and have an active campaign or a clearly defined launch mission to pitch. The programme is designed specifically for small and mid-sized organisations, and larger, well-resourced charities are not eligible.