| Criteria | Small businesses
(Businesses with fewer than 250 employees) | Large businesses
(Businesses with over 250 employees) |
| Degree of leadership in sector. | As large businesses. | The application should be visionary, minimising the use of resources or bringing significant improvements in environmental performance over comparable alternatives. |
| Degree of innovation. | As large businesses. | The application should be visionary, minimising the use of resources or bringing significant improvements in environmental performance over comparable alternatives. |
| Evidence of substantive/ measurable impact and/or benefits. | As large businesses. | Evidence of good performance environmentally and, in some instances, realising the direct financial benefit. This can come in the form of enhanced brand image, process and product innovation, and employee attraction and retention. |
| Demonstration of company ethos in practice. | Level of awareness of the organisation's environmental impacts (direct and indirect). An understanding of what they can do to improve environmental performance and some evidence of implementation (beyond the project itself). | The degree to which environmental and economic objectives are integrated into the overall mission and policies of the company. A strategic vision enabling them to continuously improve leadership in the environment. An application should exemplify the organisation's environmental policy or ethos. Conversely, the policy or ethos should be clearly demonstrated in the project. |
| Evidence of environment embedded within the business model. | As large businesses. | Consideration of the environment should be embedded firmly within the ethos of the company demonstrating leadership of environmental practices within the business framework. |
| Commitment shown by staff. | As large businesses. | The staff should be involved with the application, representing leadership in business and support for the entry from all levels of the organisation. |
| Ability for actions to be adopted by others. | Is the business engaged externally either to propagate or to adopt environmental good practice? | How far the business is sharing its experiences so as to propagate environmental good practice. |
| Ability for future development. | The business should show that there are plans to look after and develop the application. | The business should show that there are plans to look after and develop the application, and they are developing or applying related techniques within the company. |