Winner announced: Grantham Climate Art Prize 2026

A 12-year-old boy has won this year’s Grantham Climate Art Prize.

Christopher Simmon’s design for a mural, entitled Net Zero Together, captures a thriving city full of nature and innovation. It will be transformed by artist Jeru Nomi into a panoramic mural at Imperial College’s White City campus later this year.

Christopher, from Weybridge in Surrey who has special educational needs, says: "I love drawing and painting, and my work shows the city where people, nature, and technology live together happily. The picture I created is a future that I would like to see one day, and I wanted to share something positive that could make people feel happy and inspired too."

The design was chosen by a panel of judges and was one of almost 200 submitted for this year’s art prize, which asked young people aged 11 – 25 to consider six themes:

• How will we build, heat and light our homes and cities?
• Where will we shop?
• What will we do with our waste?
• How will we get around?
• Where will we source our food and drink?
• How much nature will there be and where?

The brief was definitely a challenge, to design a thriving vibrant city full of nature and innovation, so it was great to see how the young people thought about it creatively.  Jeru Nomi

Artist Jeru Nomi says: “It’s been a privilege working on the project this year particularly being involved closely with the young people with workshops in schools and youth clubs. The brief was definitely a challenge, to design a thriving vibrant city full of nature and innovation, so it was great to see how the young people thought about it creatively. 

“We were looking for was something that incorporated all aspects of the brief, but had a creative edge that would bring the concept to life. Being an illustrator, I was drawn to the winner design for its playfulness and how Christopher had created this world full of characters and colour.

“Christopher really understood the brief and took on the challenge by including the six themes within his city. Our runners up and Highly Commended entries were both very strong conceptually and should be hugely proud of what they produced.”

Two runner-up designs will be displayed in an exhibition alongside the mural. The materials for the mural and exhibition will be funded thanks to sponsors Careys, Mace, 2468 and Nivek. Runners up will receive £250 in prizes again thanks to sponsors Taste Catering Limited and AJ Staffing Solutions. They are:

• • Age 15 – 18: White City Reimagined: Sustainable Design, Shared Spaces and Urban Hope, by Egshig Enkbat age 17  [pictured below, bottom left]
  • Age 19 – 25: City of Colour, City of Care, by Isobel Linton age 23 [pictured below, centre]

  At least three Highly Commended designs will also be displayed. They include:

  • Sustainability Made Human, by Tegan Franklin-Newton age 14 [pictured below, bottom centre]
  • The Future in our Hands, by Alexandra Iakovleva age 13 [pictured below, bottom right]
  • The Greener Greater Future Awaits, by Kaviranchana Subramanian age 14 [pictured below, top]

Some of the runners up and highly commended entrants attended workshops run in London schools by the Grantham Institute with artist Jeru Nomi and PhD climate scientist Elsy Milan.

Also alongside of the mural and exhibition will be a display from our 2023 Art Prize highlighting illustrations to show 9 things you can do about climate change.

The almost 200 entries show how much their generation care about creating a better, more sustainable world full of nature, innovation and community, Linsey Wynton Senior Outreach and Communications Officer

The mural will be the 14^th mural in the Grantham Climate Art Prize series – and the second at Imperial following the completion of the mural at Dalby Court on South Kensington campus last May. Other Art Prize mural can be found across Great Britain from Coventry to Glasgow with three others in London (in Tower Hamlets, West Norwood and Nine Elms).

The Art Prize is an award from the Grantham Institute that invites young people to design murals highlighting the climate crisis and the need for action to create a more sustainable world.

“We hope the mural and exhibition will inspire passers-by to want to take action to live more sustainably. We invite young people to take part in the Art Prize because it is their futures that will be most affected by climate change. The almost 200 entries show how much their generation care about creating a better, more sustainable world full of nature, innovation and community,” says Linsey Wynton, Senior Outreach and Communications Officer.

The history of the Grantham Climate Art Prize

The Grantham Institute launched the Grantham Climate Art Prize in 2018 to draw attention to the climate crisis through art. The prize began with an exhibition in the Blyth Gallery but took to the streets from 2021 inviting young people to design street murals that were then painted by professional artists.

Martin Siegert, Visiting Professor at the Grantham Institute, who supported the launch of the art prize says: “Art has the potential to inspire minds and touch emotions in a way that science alone often finds challenging."

Previous themes have included British biodiversity loss (2021) and a greener, cleaner, cooler world (2023).

As well as murals across Great Britain, the Grantham Climate Art Prize has also had exhibitions of winning and runner-up designs at COP26 and COP30, at Earth Fest, in two Natural History Museum Real World Science Network museums, beside Battersea Power Station, on billboards across London’s transport hubs, in Hammersmith Hospital Library and on Sherfield Walkway.

As to why the Grantham Institute runs the competition, a previous participant in the Grantham Climate Art Prize workshops Mahamood Mubarak, then a PhD student, says: “When you talk to young people about climate change – it is a challenge to make it hopeful and not too frightening… but there is a therapeutic element to creating art to express and share their hopes… Through this project I’ve learned the value of art and how it complements science – topics I spent months studying can be captured in a visually striking way that speaks to all.” 

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