How to submit a successful SocEnv Awards nomination

Could you be recognised in 2025 for your outstanding environmental work? Or do you know a deserving colleague who has recently gone above and beyond to protect or enhance the environment? By reading this blog, find out how to  submit an awards nomination with the best chance of being shortlisted or even winning one of the awards! 

The SocEnv Awards are designed to recognise those outstanding individuals who have innovated, inspired, and gone beyond what’s expected in their recent work to protect, preserve, or enhance the environment. The awards have been running for 13 years now, and we have recognised so many incredible environmental professionals who have achieved huge success in their careers.  

There are two prestigious awards open for nominations now: 

• Environmental Professional of the Year 

• Rising Star 

Both of these awards offer a chance to inspire the next generation, to recognise the skills of environmental professionals and to remind one another why we’re here, doing what we do and striving every day to make a difference for the environment. 

Top tips from our judges: 

Ensure the nomination is made up of recent work: 

Focus on work and achievements from the start of 2024 that have made a real difference to protecting, preserving, or enhancing the environment and advancing the principles of sustainability. You can include ongoing projects too.  

Don’t be shy! 

Tell the judges about your (or the person you are nominating’s) successes, progress and achievements in the nomination, boast about the outstanding work you have completed across 2024 and / or 2025. 

It’s not all about the work achievements: 

In the application, please include any achievements outside of work, including voluntary work. This shows the judges how you have gone above and beyond for the environment and sustainability, which is not necessarily constrained to your day job. Tell our judges what you do in your own time, what volunteering do you do; Have you completed a charity run for the environment? Or do you organise clean ups? Anything that showcases your commitment outside of your job can help boost your nomination and makes you stand out from all the other submissions. 

You just have to be in it to win it: 

You do not need to be a director at a global company or leading projects, you just need to be doing incredible things for the environment. You can be a technician working on a project – just make sure to tell the judges how you made a difference for that particular project. 

Our recent winners were all entirely shocked to win the award, and in 2025 that could be you! View our award winners’ reactions here: 

Feedback from previous years’ nominations to help you avoid mistakes: 

Avoid using ‘we’ in the nomination, this is an individual award so ensure the answers focus on ‘you’ – tell the judges what you (or the nominee) did. 

Ensure the nomination form is completed in full, do not leave any blank spaces in the form. There’s 250 words for each of the five nomination questions, use them all. Make the most of the chance to highlight everything that was successful in 2024.  

Focus on the impact. Telling the judges the things you’ve achieved is great but what is the impact of that work? They want to see the outcome of the projects, volunteering and other activities you talk about in the nomination. When you’re writing the nomination think, “so what?” What impact did you make? 

Submit a nomination 

Nominees for both awards must be registered as a Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv), Registered Environmental Practitioner (REnvP) or Registered Environmental Technician (REnvTech). However, nominations can be submitted by anyone, including self-nominations.  

Visit the SocEnv Awards page to download the guidelines, find out further details, including the full entry criteria and conditions, and to learn more about the previous awards winners and our judges.  

Video Nomination: 

SocEnv is committed to being an inclusive organisation. You can submit your application in a video to make our application process easier and more accessible for you. 

Video requirements:

• This video must be a talking head style video and should NOT be professionally produced. 

• You must submit one video per application question; therefore, we will expect to see five videos in your submission. 

• Video answers should be a maximum of two minutes per question (application questions are outlined on the SocEnv Awards). 

• Title each video with the specific question being addressed. 

Nominations for the SocEnv awards are open until Tuesday 15th April 2025.  

Now is the time to gain some well-deserved recognition, nominate yourself or a well-deserved colleague for free, today.