2025 TSL Essay Competition (Trust for Sustainable Living) For Young Students | £2250 Cash Award
Trust for Sustainable Living – TSL Essay Competition seeks to hear students’ own views on how they feel that nature can support the achievement of the SDGs in their own communities and reward them with a cash prize of £2250.
Students are invited to approach the topic however they wish. They can choose to focus on one SDG, or multiple SDGs that they feel are a key issue within their communities and explore how nature could help to improve the situation.
About
Entries are invited from students all over the world who meet the competition’s eligibility requirements for the 2024 Trust for Sustainable Living Essay Competition.
TSL wants to help young people develop a sense of agency, empowerment and hope for solutions and action by creating a safe and supportive space and outlet for expression for students and teachers to explore moving from feelings of eco-anxiety, to eco action & empowerment.
Recent global surveys have indicated that over 50% of young people are experiencing eco-anxiety and are extremely worried about environmental and climate change, with many reporting feelings of sadness, anxiousness, anger, powerlessness, helplessness and guilt.
The competition is open to accepting any form of student response, you can choose to create a piece of artwork, music, video, poem, essay, letter, story, etc.
Essay Topic
Students are invited to share their original, creative and expressive responses to the theme, “From Eco-Anxiety to Eco Action & Empowerment”.
Requirements:
All work should be original and the student’s own. A bibliography of references should be included where appropriate and will not be counted as part of the official word limit. Essays with plagiarised content will not be considered for an award.
If students choose to use AI to support them in their research, then it is important they do not use AI tools to generate an essay and submit it as if it was their own work. The use of generative AI must be acknowledged in the bibliography (as detailed below) where it has been used as a functional tool to assist in the process of creating essays.
Minimum requirement to include in the bibliography:
- Name and version of the generative AI system used; e.g. ChatGPT-3.5
- Publisher (company that made the AI system); e.g. OpenAI
- URL of the AI system.
- Brief description (single sentence) of context in which the tool was used.
- The prompt(s) used to generate a response in the AI system.
For example: I acknowledge the use of ChatGPT 3.5 (Open AI, https://chat.openai.com) to summarise my initial notes and to proofread my final draft.
Rewards
- One overall Grand Prize Winner will receive a trophy and a cash prize of £1000 and £500 for their school,
- One Runner Up receiving a trophy and a cash prize of £500 and £250 for their school (cash prizes paid in local currency).
- All participating Teacher Champions, Essay Finalists & Honourable Mentions, and International Debate participants, will receive personalised e-certificates.
Key dates
- September 2024: TSL 2025 Competition Launch – ECO ANXIETY. Registration for Teacher Champions/Schools to participate in the TSL 2025 Student Competition will open on the TSL Submittable page on 4th October.
- 03 March 2025: Final deadline for all entries.
- 01 May 2025: Announcement of International Competition 2025 Finalists & Honourable Mentions on TSL website
- 23 May 2025: Top Ten Finalists from Primary and Secondary categories notified via Teacher Champion.
- 27-28 May 25: Invitations to participate in the International Student Debates sent to eligible students via their Teacher Champion.
- Summer 2025: International Student Debates & Awards (online)
How to Apply?
The essay length varies by age as follows:
- Primary students (ages 7-11): 400 words
- Secondary and College students (ages 12-18): 600 words
Deadline: March 3, 2025
