Guidelines and Selection Process

Guidelines for an Individual Award

• Individuals nominated should have a connection to and/or demonstrated impacts in Minnesota. 
• The nomination application responses are the primary content for evaluation. 
• Supplemental materials for nomination applications include publications or supporting media. 
• If two or more nominations for the same person are received, judges will evaluate only the nomination received first. It is the nominator’s responsibility to communicate with other potential nominators to ensure the submission of a single, comprehensive nomination.
• Contact information will be added to Environmental Initiative’s database and email distribution list. Per our privacy policy, contact information will not be shared with other organizations. 

How Individual Award Nominations Are Evaluated

Environmental Initiative staff will review nominations and select winners for the Critical Collaborator and Emerging Leader awards based on the following criteria.

• Collaboration: Degree to which nominee demonstrates ability to collaborate and solve problems across difference;
• Impacts: Degree to which nominee demonstrates ability to make a positive impact on our environment, economy and community;
• People-centered: Degree to which nominee demonstrates ability to lead by centering people, especially those disproportionately impacted by decisions in which they had little or no voice, and, building innovative relationships to solve environmental problems. 

Due to the broad nature of the award category and types of projects submitted, the judging team will determine the relative weight of the above criteria. The Environmental Initiative Awards seeks to inspire others to adopt collaborative and equity-centered approaches to environmental problem solving, so judges will also consider the degree to which the project can be built upon, learned from, and replicated.  

Environmental Initiative monitors project nominations for potential conflicts of interests with individuals serving as judges. Conflicts are handled on a case-by-case basis. Judges may be asked to recuse themselves from evaluation and discussion of that specific project or may be asked to leave the judging panel entirely, depending on the level of involvement of a judge with a project.