| 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 must 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 needs 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 environmental performance and, in some instances, realising direct financial benefit in the form of enhanced brand image, process and product innovation, or employee attraction and retention. |
| Demonstration of company ethos in practice. | Level of awareness of environmental impacts (direct and indirect) within the business. An understanding of what the business 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 the business to continuously improve leadership in the environment. An application should exemplify the environmental policy or ethos of the business. 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 needs to be embedded firmly within the ethos of the business demonstrating leadership of environmental practices. |
| Commitment shown by staff. | As large businesses. | The workforce need be involved with the application, recognise the actions and leadership of the business and support the entry at all levels. |
| Ability for actions to be adopted by others. | The business is 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. Projects/campaigns need to have the ability to influence beyond the direct business and lead to behavioural changes on a larger scale. |
| Ability for future development. | The business should show that there are plans to manage and develop the application. | The business needs to show that there are plans to manage and develop the application, and that they are developing or applying related techniques. |
| Evidence of engagement with stakeholders. | Environmental engagement is embedded within the business model not only with employees but also with customers and suppliers to develop a common sustainable culture. | Evidence of innovative, original and successful methods of engagement, not only with employees but also with customers and suppliers. |