Founded by the leading Swiss private bank Pictet & Cie in 2008, the Prix Pictet has rapidly established itself as the world’s leading prize in photography and sustainability. The award aims to uncover outstanding photography applied to confront the most pressing social and environmental challenges of today.

The Prix Pictet has two elements: the prize of CHF 100,000 and the Commission, in which a nominated photographer is invited to undertake a field trip to a region where the Bank is supporting a sustainability project.

The Prix Pictet aims to uncover photographs that communicate important messages about global environmental and social issues within the broad theme of sustainability. Each cycle has a specific theme. The first four cycles wereWater, Earth, Growth and Power, which is currently touring worldwide. The fifth theme of the Prix Pictet will be announced at Les Rencontres d’Arles in July 2013.

Entry is by nomination. The nominators for the Prix Pictet are a group of leading experts – critics, curators, journalists and gallerists – who each propose up between two and five photographers for consideration by the independent Jury.

Photographers not nominated, but wishing to submit their work for consideration are invited to contact the Prix Pictet Secretariat.

All submissions are made online in a private artists’ zone on the website.

The Jury looks for work, arranged in a coherent series, that fits the theme of the particular cycle, which has a high artistic quality and considerable narrative power. Once the submission process has been completed, the independent jury are responsible for drawing up a Shortlist and selecting a winner.

No preference is given to any particular kind of photographic material, technique or creative route, nor are any of these excluded from consideration. An artist using photographs, for example, is judged by precisely the same criteria as a photojournalist or a commercial photographer, or a professional in another field for whom photography may be no more than one of many tools.

In arriving at their final decision on the award, the judges make no distinction between photographs of different genres, nor do they assume different potential types of audience for any class of photograph.

As well from selecting the overall Prix Pictet winner, the Jury is responsible for recommending a list of nominated photographers to the Partners of Pictet & Cie. One of these photographers will be invited to complete the Prix Pictet Commission.