Awards for Excellence in Sustainability
Congratulating the Winners of the Ninth (2022) Annual Awards for Excellence In Sustainability!
Honoring projects, plans, policies, individuals, and organizations whose work is dedicated to supporting and growing sustainable communities.
The Sustainable Communities Division is pleased to announce the winners of the ninth annual Awards for Excellence in Sustainability.
The winners represent extraordinary achievements in seven sustainable planning categories. The categories and winners are:
State or Regional Award: Kansas City Regional Climate Action Plan, Mid-America Regional Council (Kansas City Metropolitan Region)
Community-wide Award: Green Worcester Sustainability and Resilience Strategic Plan, City of Worcester and Larissa Brown + Associates (Worcester, Massachusetts)
Sub-area Award: Riverlife: Completing the Loop, evolve environment :: architecture, Fourth Economy Consulting, and Thread Strategies (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
Environment, Climate, & Energy Award: TransformTO Net Zero Strategy, City of Toronto and Sustainability Solutions Group (Toronto, Canada)
Quality of Life Award: Southern Nevada Extreme Heat Vulnerability Analysis, Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (Southern Nevada)
Policy, Law, or Tool Award: Edmonton Carbon Budget, City of Edmonton and Sustainability Solutions Group (Edmonton, Canada)
Student Award: Equity Lenses – Targeting Equitable Community Investment Across Southern California, University of California Los Angeles Luskin School of Public Affairs and Southern California Association of Governments (Southern California)
To recognize two additional outstanding nominations, the jury has also awarded two Merit Awards in the State or Regional Award category:
State or Regional Award (Merit Award): Climate Action Plan for the Chicago Metropolitan Region, Metropolitan Mayors Caucus and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Chicago Metropolitan Region)
State or Regional Award (Merit Award): Hawai‘i 2050 Sustainability Plan: Charting a Course for the Decade of Action (2020-2030), State of Hawai‘i Office of Planning and Sustainable Development, Statewide Sustainability Branch (State of Hawai‘i )
Submitting for the 9th Annual Awards for Excellence in Sustainability
Step 1
Read through Award Requirements and Guidelines
Step 2
Look at the Requirements of specific Award categories
Step 3
Prepare Responses to Criteria and Sub-criteria
(Please note that character limits for criteria include spaces.)
Step 4
Fill up the Web Form and Submit
Eligibility
Nomination Guidelines
Except for the Leadership category, any nominated effort must have been adopted, implemented, or completed, as relevant, within three years of the deadline for submission of nominations. Published drafts are not eligible.
Competition entries are not eligible for nomination, unless they have been fully adopted as a plan or are moving forward into implementation.
A nominated effort may only be entered in one award category per award year.
Projects or plans may be related to locations within the United States or internationally.
To ensure efficient review, all pieces of the submission must be provided in English. (Exceptions made for proper nouns, including project names, organization/partner names, etc.)
Efforts do not need to incorporate titles that explicitly label them as a "sustainability" or "resilience" focused; they need only incorporate principles of sustainability or resilience.
Both APA members and non-members may submit nominations.
Requirements for all Award Categories
Current members of the APA-SCD Executive Committee (elected officers currently serving in their elected role), APA staff, APA Board of Directors, and AICP Commission are not eligible to make nominations or to receive awards.
Members of the APA-SCD Awards Jury, and their respective organizations, as relevant, are not eligible to make nominations or to receive awards.
Any other individuals or organizations may submit nominations, subject to other eligibility requirements.
Additional Requirements for the Leadership Category
Individuals may not nominate themselves for a Leadership in Sustainability Award, but an individual employed by the municipality, agency, firm, or other organization, may nominate an entity with which they are involved.
Nominators may not be related to any individual they wish to nominate.
Recipients of a Leadership in Sustainability Award are ineligible to receive the same award for 10 years following its receipt.
Additional Requirements for the Student Project Categories
Members of the APA Student Representatives Council (SRC) Executive Committee are not eligible to receive an award.
If you are unsure about eligibility, please contact the SCD Awards Coordinator: Jenny Koch, AICP, jenniferk@rhiplaces.com.
Review and Selection
The 2022 Excellence in Sustainability Awards Jury will consist of practitioners, leaders, and experts in the area of sustainability. The following stipulations apply to the jury review process:
Each nomination which meets all submission requirements will be reviewed by at least three jurors.
Except for the Student Award, the jury may select up to one entry in each category to receive an award.
Jurors may move an award nomination into a category other than the one under which it was submitted.
Jurors may elect to not present an award in any particular category, regardless of the number of submissions in that category.
Contact with members of the jury to discuss an award nomination will result in disqualification.
The Awards Coordinator will notify the nominator of the status of their award submission by the end of March 2022.
Deadline and Submission
All entry nominations shall be submitted via web form.
The form can be found at apascd.com/awards, or surveymonkey.com/r/SCD2022.
Be sure to review the eligibility and criteria requirements for the relevant award category prior to completing the form.
We suggest you utilize the submission template document to prepare the text that you will need to provide prior to starting the form. You must fill out the web form all at once (i.e., you cannot save a partially completed form and return to complete it).
If you submit the form once and would like to resubmit before the end of the nomination period, please feel free to do so. The jury will review only the most recently-completed form.
There is no entry fee.
Entries will be accepted through 11:59 PM (EST) on Friday, March 11, 2022*.
Evaluation Criteria
The following pages contain a set of evaluation criteria for each award category. Please make sure to explicitly and directly address how your project meets each criterion. Jurors will award each criterion response a score between 0-5, using the guidelines below, for a total score out of 25 or 40 points, depending on the category.
Includes no information addressing this set of criteria = 0 points
Addressed some criteria but demonstrated few accomplishments = 1 point
Addressed most criteria and demonstrated some accomplishments = 2 points
Clearly addressed all criteria and demonstrated average accomplishments = 3 points
Clearly addressed all criteria and demonstrated above average accomplishments = 4 points
Clearly addressed all criteria and demonstrated exceptional accomplishments = 5 points
*Update - As of March 1, the deadline has been extended from March 4 to March 11.
Announcement of the Winners of the Eighth (2021) Annual Awards for Excellence in Sustainability
The American Planning Association’s Sustainable Communities Division (SCD) is pleased to announce the winners of the eighth annual Awards for Excellence in Sustainability. The awards honor projects, plans, policies, individuals, and organizations whose work is dedicated to supporting sustainable communities.
The winners represent extraordinary achievements in eight Sustainable Planning categories.
