Guidelines 2024
Timeline.
The competition for the European Green Award goes through the following phases:
Submission by April 5, 2024, where applicants register through the „Online Entry Management System“ and upload the necessary media and documentation to enter the competition.
Pre-Selection. The competition office reviews the submissions for completeness of documentation and conducts a screening of the sustainability performance of the submissions as well as the companies with a panel of experts.
Admission to the competition. If the pre-selection is completed positively, the submissions are admitted to the competition. With this step, the entrants are official participants in the competition.
Nominations on May 8, 2024. The expert panel will evaluate all entrants in a category and select the best submissions from them. This is the shortlist of nominees. The nominees will then be published on the contest site and receive the nominee label.
Judging. The members of the expert jury judge each nominee in an independent online process. The winner is the nominee in a category who has received the highest average rating across all individual assessments.
Winner-Announcement on May 31, 2024. The Gold Trophy winners will be published on the competition website, receive the Winner-Label, a personalized Winner-Certificate and the Trophy „The Golden Leaf“.
Contest Gallery. Winners will be published on the contest page, as well as nominees in the 2021 Contest Gallery.
Entry Fees.
For participation the following fees per submission apply:
Early Birds: 290,- Euro for a submission until March 1, 2024 (23.59 h).
Regular Birds: 370,- Euro for a submission until April 3, 2024 (23.59 h).
Young Change Makers (up to 27 years old) are exempt from all fees.
No fees will be charged for a nomination.
Winner fees: 1.150,- Euro. These service fees apply to winners in one category.
Entry Information.
In the online entry management system, the following information, images and documentation will be uploaded for participation, which will later be available to the jury for their evaluation:
Short description (only in English): Brief description of the sustainable or fair product, design, hotel, innovation or marketing.
Description text (English or German): Describe your submission in detail. We recommend not to write marketing texts, but to describe the environmental and / or social sustainability performance in a comprehensive way.
Sustainability impact (German or English): The ecological and social impact of the submission should be described as concretely as possible and be comprehensible to third parties. Use the award criteria as a guide. Here, too, it is recommended to refrain from pure marketing texts.
Images: At least one image must be uploaded. A total of up to 6 images can be submitted.
Optional videos: Optional videos in mp4 format can be uploaded.
Optional documents: PDF documents such as brochures, CSR repros, etc. can optionally be uploaded.
Conditions of participation.
Green Product Award, Green Design Award, Green Innovation Award: Launch between January 1, 2022 – December 31, 2023.
Green Marketing Award, Fair Business Award: Implementation between January 1, 2022 – December 31, 2023.
Green Hotel Award: Sustainable hotels opened within the last 10 years.
Eligibility.
Companies, organizations, institutions, associations, NGOs, sustainability actors and students with a location or place of residence in Europe are eligible to participate in the European Green Award.
Sustainable products or sustainable services that have already been launched on the market at the time of submission can be entered.
Judging Criteria.
The jury will judge the submissions based on the following overarching criteria. In addition, there are criteria within the specific competitions.
Breadth – Sustainability is part of the corporate strategy and is implemented holistically within the company or in relation to the product.
Depth – The individual measures are implemented consistently and comprehensively. Ideally, the entire value chain and the entire company is organized according to sustainable principles.
Ecological standards – Social and ecological standards are met and ideally exceeded.
Circularity Design – Ideally, submissions are designed according to circular principles.
Sustainable Impact – The submission has demonstrated positive sustainability effects on user behavior or in relation to the sustainability dimensions: social effects or environmental effects.
Innovation – The submission demonstrates innovation performance in at least one dimension of sustainability. This is relevant and demonstrates a high degree of novelty.
Transparency – The sustainability performance is presented and communicated in a comprehensible way.
User integration – Users are encouraged to act sustainably, are part of the solution or are „rewarded“ for doing so.
Exclusion Criteria.
The participant declares that they do not violate any environmental or social principles of sustainability with their submission. The participant therefore declares that they do not process any toxic or environmentally harmful substances and that no unfair practices are applied throughout their value chain.
The participant declares that they do not violate any human rights.
The participant declares that they do not use nuclear energy.
The participant declares that they are not associated with any production or distribution of weapons or with the arms industry through their company, institution or organization.
The participant declares that the members of the management are not members of any radical organization (e.g. radical right-wing party).
Already in case of justified suspicion of non-compliance with these exclusion criteria, the submission will be excluded from the competition.
The organizer reserves the right, if necessary, to request documentation to prove the sustainability performance Sustainability certificates, information on the company headquarters or place of residence or other documentation. If these are not provided in sufficient transparency, the organizer reserves the right to exclude the participant from the competition.