Apply for the BeSustain Sustainability Awards

Applications are open.

1. Purpose of the Programme

The BeSustain Sustainability Awards aim to strengthen a culture in which organisations take responsibility for their environmental, social and governance impacts, consider stakeholders in their decision-making processes, and make sustainability an integral part of their business models.

The programme seeks to make concrete, measurable and verifiable practices visible, while supporting organisations in their journey towards impact, accountability, transparency and continuous improvement.

The programme’s category structure has been designed to address organisations’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) impacts in an integrated way. The categories also take into account the global priorities reflected in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The Awards assess not only statements of intent or communication activities, but also initiatives that an organisation has implemented, monitored and can substantiate with evidence.

2. Applicant Eligibility

Applications are open to private-sector organisations, public institutions, local authorities, publicly owned entities and universities, regardless of their headquarters or geographic area of operation.

The applicant must be the owner and implementer of the submitted project, practice, product, service or organisational approach, and must be accountable for its outcomes.

Where more than one organisation has contributed to an initiative, project partners must be clearly identified in the application form. An organisation may apply directly for initiatives relating to its own operations, products, services or organisational practices.

The submitted initiative is expected to:

1. Be in implementation at the time of application,

2. Demonstrate tangible outputs, outcomes or progress indicators,

3. Be verifiable through the information and evidence contained in the report submitted with the application form.

3. Ineligible Activities

Applications from organisations engaged in gambling or betting activities will not be accepted.

BeSustain reserves the right to exclude applications associated with activities that are clearly inconsistent with the purpose, integrity or evaluation principles of the programme.

4. Organisation Type and Award Structure

Each category is assessed through the following applicant tracks, based on the type of organisation:

1. SME Track: Private-sector organisations with fewer than 250 employees that are not controlled by a larger corporate group.

2. Enterprise Track: Private-sector organisations with 250 or more employees, as well as subsidiaries that form part of a larger corporate group.

3. Public & Academic Track: Public institutions, local authorities, publicly owned entities and universities.

Applications from public and academic organisations are assessed separately from private-sector applications. Depending on the number and quality of applications, the jury may decide to grant a category award or a Special Recognition in this track.

5. Number of Applications and Application Fee

An organisation may apply to one or more categories it considers relevant.

Each category application is assessed separately and must clearly demonstrate its relevance to the selected category, including the initiative’s implementation, evidence and outcomes. The same initiative may be submitted to more than one category, provided that each application clearly distinguishes its category-specific impact, implementation and evidence.

Each category submission is treated as a separate application and is subject to the relevant application fee.

The application fee is EUR 375 + applicable VAT per category.

6. Application Process

Applicants submit a structured application through the application portal. Each application includes:

1. The selected award category and an initiative title,

2. A concise summary of the initiative and an explanation of its relevance to the selected category and measurable impact,

3. The primary scope of the initiative,

4. Up to three key results or progress indicators, including the indicator, result and measurement period,

5. One core sustainability report, annual report, impact report or equivalent evidence document,

6. A reference to the relevant page numbers, section titles or links within that core document.

Applicants may also provide additional supporting files or public links where relevant.

Statements, indicators and claims included in the form must be supported by the core evidence document or other submitted supporting material. Jury assessments are conducted through a combined review of the information submitted in the application form and the uploaded reports and evidence documents.

7. Common Evaluation Principles

All categories are assessed against the following core principles:

1. Relevance: The relationship between the initiative, the selected category and the organisation’s material impacts.

2. Strategic Integration: The connection between the initiative and the organisation’s business model, governance and decision-making processes.

3. Practical Implementation: Evidence of an implemented policy, system, product, service or process beyond a stated commitment.

4. Measurable Impact: The monitoring of outcomes through meaningful indicators, presented quantitatively where possible.

5. Evidence and Verifiability: The reliability of data, methodology and supporting documentation.

6. Stakeholder Impact: Consideration of impacts on employees, customers, suppliers, communities, the environment and other stakeholders.

7. Governance and Accountability: The clarity of responsibilities, decision-making mechanisms, risks and assurance approach.

8. Innovation and Learning: The initiative’s capacity to create new value, generate learning and support improvement.

9. Scalability and Longevity: The continuity, potential for wider adoption and long-term impact of the initiative.

8. Jury Evaluation Model

BeSustain establishes an evaluation structure composed of independent jury members with relevant expertise.

1. BeSustain conducts the jury evaluation process through a secure, auditable digital jury panel with role-based authorisation.

2. The jury panel is operated using appropriate technical and organisational security measures to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of application files, jury information, scores and comments. These measures include secure user authentication, role-based access control, encryption of data in transit, protection against unauthorised access attempts, secure backups, audit logging and regular security updates.

3. Jury members assess and score the applications assigned to them independently. Before completing and locking their own assessment, a jury member cannot view the scores, comments or assessment results of other jury members.

4. The jury panel is designed to maintain an auditable record of jury-member assignments, conflict-of-interest declarations, scores, comments, timestamps and changes to assessments.

5. Jury members may not participate in the evaluation of an application where they have a conflict of interest with the organisation concerned.

6. Jury members agree to keep application information confidential and to conduct their assessments solely in accordance with the programme principles.

9. Results and Communications

Current information on application dates, the programme timeline, category details, application announcements and results is published on besustain.nl. BeSustain may also share this information through its official social-media accounts and other communication channels where appropriate. Results are announced publicly by BeSustain. Subject to the applicant’s approval and applicable confidentiality obligations, BeSustain may use summaries of awarded applications in programme communications. Awarded organisations may use communication materials provided by BeSustain only in accordance with the applicable terms of use.