Category Description
This award is open to all organisations taking a ‘circular economy’ approach to overall organisational, site or project specific activities during 2021-24.
The winning entrant will demonstrate how it’s moved beyond waste reduction and recycling to genuine circularity – finding ways to recover and repurpose materials, either within its own operations or in collaboration with its value chain.
The Judges will be looking at how challenges are addressed, how the supply chain (including local authorities where relevant) is involved and how emerging technologies are utilised. Entrants will demonstrate how they defined the challenge, identified solutions and engaged key stakeholders.
We request a total word count of 1500 words +/-10% (excl. supporting docs). Any confidential data will be treated as such and only shared with the judging panel.
Criteria
Judges will be looking for evidence of the following points within the supplied application form (weighting percentages in brackets):
- The organisation’s commitment to maximising resource efficiency, showing true innovation for creative solutions, with a focus on eliminating and repurposing ‘waste’ (25%)
- Evidence that the organisation has adopted or is well on the way to adopting a ‘closed loop’ system, and is successfully engaging with partners, employees, and the value chain in order to implement it (50%)
- Evidence of how this fits into and supports the organisation’s overarching sustainability strategy (15%)
- Evidence that it is influencing others to adopt a circular approach (10%)
PLEASE NOTE: The criteria above are different to the questions in the application form. You will need to follow the application questions; cross-referencing these with the criteria to ensure you’ve captured them within your application. The criteria are followed by the judges in order to compare all entries in each category like-for-like, Please ensure you register / login to AwardStage (Opens 3 Feb), select the category and export a PDF copy of the questions. Some category application questions differ. The application questions will be available four weeks before entries open, so if you wish to get them ahead of time please email us.
Are we eligible to enter?
Our awards programme is open to all organisations of any kind… companies large and small, charities, not-for-profits, social enterprises, NGOs, membership and accreditation organisations and government departments including local and county councils. We are all about rewarding sustainability practice – in all its forms. So if your organisation is making a difference, directly or indirectly to people and planet, you’re eligible.
We don’t just recognise businesses that are operating responsibly, or supporting / partnering with worthwhile causes. We also actively encourage entries from organisations that have been specifically set up or adapted to offer a product or service that tackles a social or environmental problem.
Our category descriptions and criteria have been written to guide entrants on what content should be detailed in their entries. However, we do not expect square pegs to fit in round holes… Some of your business activities or dedicated programmes might not fit entirely with any one specific category. In these cases, the descriptions and criteria are open to an element of interpretation and rest assured that our judges will still take into account entries that are strongly aligned with the overall context of the category.
If you have any concerns about the suitability of your entry, or would like to discuss your activities in more detail, we are here to help. Give Karen a call on 07813 718541 or email me.