The Prince and Princess of Wales with their children (Image: Getty)
Last year he and Catherine were in Boston for the ceremony and he met President Biden, another example of royals lobbying for good causes at the highest level.
In founding this prize, William is continuing the royal family’s environmental activism.
King Charles is famous for his work on this issue, which he began over 50 years ago.
However, what is special about the Earthshot Prize is its pragmatic approach as it encourages innovation and rewards new ideas.
In a perspicacious interview, William stressed the need for optimism for the future of the planet, which is a welcome contrast to the endless apocalyptic predictions we are so used to.
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The Waleses have also applied to register their Royal Foundation in the United States which is exciting.
Perhaps they could take part in a charity run, they have always combined their love of sports with more formal activities when on trips abroad and this has been extremely popular, both with the press and with their hosts.
William is campaigning against homelessness, which he believes can be made “rare, brief and unrepeated”.
This is undoubtedly inspired by his mother, who took him to visit The Passage, a hostel for the homeless of which he is now Patron.
In the days when the Fab Four were speaking (Image: Getty)
He recently launched the charity Homewards, a five-year project which initially plans to build social housing in six locations.
He has sold The Big Issue, the magazine for the homeless and has slept rough himself to highlight their plight.
Also following in Diana’s footsteps is his Presidency of the Royal Marsden Hospital to help in the campaign against cancer.
His desire to combat the illegal wildlife trade led to his support for the Tusk Trust and his founding of United for Wildlife.
He tackled President Xi of China on the issue and also gave an address on state television to the Chinese people.
A feature of William and Catherine’s charitable work is that in contrast to senior royals in past years, who took on hundreds of patronages, they have links to relatively few numerically.
However, they do a huge amount for those they have chosen.
An example of this is mental health, they launched the Heads Together initiative to help lift the stigma around this frequently misunderstood condition.
William’s support for King Charles and for the late Queen has been unstinting. He has handled his ceremonial duties extremely well. He was the first royal to visit Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories and proved the perfect diplomat.
William is more popular than his brother (Image: Chris Jackson/Getty)
The Waleses’ trips abroad have proved to be among the best uses of soft power Britain has.
The exception was their trip to the Caribbean last year, a region which has become more radical since previous royal visits.
William, as President of the Football Association, should have travelled to the Women’s World Cup final in Australia to support the Lionesses, this was a rare mistake.
William’s loyalty can be contrasted with the behaviour of his brother Prince Harry, who, together with his wife Meghan, has launched a damaging series of broadsides at the Royal Family after they stepped down as senior working royals.
Prince Harry’s book Spare was a best-seller (Image: Matt Cardy/Getty)
Harry’s memoir, Spare highlighted the resentment he felt towards William and the public rift between them is very wide as William, rightly, feels betrayed and regards Harry as totally untrustworthy.
Harry used to be tremendously popular. His charitable successes, such as the Invictus Games and Sentebale in Lesotho, were, however, all established before his marriage.
Polls for Newsweek have shown support for the Sussexes declining in the United States, it collapsed in Britain long ago.
The lesson for them must surely be that if you attack your family often enough in public, whilst crying out for privacy, you eventually lose the respect of the public which is what is happening.
Diana, Princess of Wales epitomised unconventionality, but the breach between her sons who reportedly are not in touch with each other, would surely have grieved her deeply.
Harry and William maintained their distance at The Queen’s funeral (Image: Samir Hussein/WireImage)
William has been an ideal husband. In the early years of his marriage, he was an RAF search and rescue pilot in Wales and then as an air ambulance pilot, so he and his family had as much privacy as possible.
He and Catherine spend as much time as they can with George, Charlotte and Louis who are currently all at Lambrook School, which is near Adelaide Cottage, their home on the Windsor Estate.
George seems destined to follow his father to nearby Eton, which is an excellent plan.
Catherine has been taking on an increasing number of solo engagements recently.
Meghan and Harry at the Invictus Games (Image: Getty)
Her poise, beauty and status as a fashion icon are widely admired and she also appears confident.
Her most high-profile charitable work is specialising in the early years of childhood, which should prove extremely useful.
William’s dedication to his duties as well as the obvious happiness of his marriage and his joy at being a father has charmed millions worldwide.
He and Catherine and their children are the future of the monarchy, which goes back over 1,000 years. It could not be in more diligent or conscientious hands.
Richard Fitzwilliams is a royal commentator, film critic and public relations consultant who has given over 1,400 interviews on television. He was Editor of The International Who’s Who, the standard source of its type, from 1975 until 2001.
