Virtual judging day hailed huge success

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Virtual judging day hailed huge success

The finalists for the 2020 edition of the Global Good Awards (GGA), sponsored by Revive and CH&CO, have been announced following another first for the pioneering sustainability awards: a virtual judging day.

For the past five years, GGA panel judges have done preliminary online scoring of entries before all meeting up in London for a final Judging Day where their scores are deliberated and discussed. It is only then that the shortlist can be drawn up.

“Obviously this year with social distancing in place, our usual deciding day couldn’t go ahead,” explains Karen Sutton, CEO of the Awards. “However, courtesy of wonderful support from Cisco and its amazing Webex technology, all our judges were able to hook up virtually where they debated and discussed all the entries in order to whittle them down to this year’s shortlist.”

Judging Day is one of the highlights on Karen’s awards calendar. “It’s always exciting to discover which entries the judges rank highly as I don’t read them in order to remain neutral. I communicate with all the entrants throughout the entire annual process so to be any further involved would compromise that role,” she says.

This year Karen got to experience the judging day from a completely different perspective. “Usually, I brief them as a large group, split them into sub-groups and leave them to it, only chipping in when they have a question. However, this year it was all in video conference calls. So once I’d briefed the judges, I was able to mute myself but still listen in their discussions.”

It was a real eye-opener and proved just how robust the Awards’ process is. “I’ve always been incredibly proud of our judges and the effort they put in to giving the entries the best possible evaluation. But hearing their conversations for the first time, I was totally blown away. They were incredible!” Karen beams. “The depth of consideration and challenges they looked at when discussing an entry was remarkable. Patents, innovation, comparisons, impact, starting points… I’d not heard this side of things before and it’s left me feeling even more confident in our panel, some of whom have been with us since we started in 2015. My sincere thanks go to out to all our category judges who’ve done such an excellent job!”

Meet our 2020 judging panel here.

See who’s made it onto the 2020 shortlist here.

Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the awards ceremony scheduled for 16th June will not now be going ahead. “However, on that date we will be announcing which entries have made it into the final Gold, Silver and Bronze positions,” adds Karen. “We’ll be saving the all-important winners announcement until we can reschedule a special Winners Lunch later this year. So plenty still to look forward to!”