This award recognizes organisation’s that are leaders in embracing and promoting environmental and social consciousness throughout all facets of their operation from governance to employees, covering their products and services and engaging all stakeholders (customers, suppliers, investors and the wider community).
This award aims to support socially responsible investments in corporates and encourage government at the local and national level to lead by example and set the foundation for a sustainable economy and society. The award is aligned to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals that sets forth to solve economic, social, and environmental challenges by 2030 and climate change imperatives to reduce net emissions of all greenhouse gases to zero by 2050.
The award criteria examines three areas:
- Environment (considering an organisation’s sustainability practices – for example energy use, waste, pollution, and/or consumption of natural resources).
- Social (considering an organisation’s relationships with employees, suppliers, customers, and the communities where it operates – for example in diversity, human rights and protecting consumers).
- Governance (considering an organisation’s ethics, management, executive pay, audits, transparency, internal controls, and shareholder democracy).
The ESG Excellence Criteria used for assessing the applications:
- Role Model, World-Class, Wow! (7 Stars, ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★)
- Outstanding at an International Level (6 Stars, ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★)
- Excellence at an International Level (5 Stars, ★ ★ ★ ★ ★)
- Excellence at a Local Level (4 Stars, ★ ★ ★ ★)
- Competence (Professional) (3 Stars, ★ ★ ★)
- Progressing (Minor Deficiencies) (2 Star, ★ ★)
- Deficient (Major Deficiencies) (1 Star, ★)
The process of entering the award is the same as for entering the New Zealand Best Practice Competition and similar rules are applied.
An entry form can be found on this page and the format/timeline of the award here.