Sustainable Brands Leadership Awards

As active storytellers and change agents of commerce, brands are in a unique position to help us build a shared vision of a flourishing and sustainable future, while also playing a central role in aligning the resources needed to get there.

At Sustainable Brands, we seek to inspire, engage and equip brands big and small to succeed by leading the way to a sustainable future. We recognize that in the 21st century a brand is no longer just a mark or external identity, but must necessarily align who you are, what you do and how you do it, with the externally communicated brand promise.  Brands that succeed in the future must therefore not only have a meaningful promise, but also deliver on that promise with full integrity.

To keep executing on our mission, we are unveiling yet another way to demonstrate our vision of a sustainable brand, which we define as a brand that endures by respecting and delighting all stakeholders in both this and future generations.

We are launching our new Sustainable Brands Leadership Awards (“SB Leadership Awards”) at SB’13 in June of next year to recognize exemplary leadership in each of the stakeholder relationships we believe must be involved in building a sustainable brand today. More specifically, SB Leadership Awards will single out brands that both respect and delight each of the following nine stakeholder groups: employees, community, customers, suppliers, investors, civil society, government, academia and peer brands. Keeping small, medium and large* brands as separate categories, and awarding leadership in one stakeholder group at a time, we will give a total of 27 awards. Wait, make that 28 by adding our special Ultimate SB Leadership award for outstanding performance in multiple stakeholder groups!

Nomination Guidelines

You can submit as many nominations as you’d like by using the form on the right. For each nomination, you are required to enter a brand category and a stakeholder group that the brand in question has both respected and delighted. Please also indicate whether you’d like nomination to be considered for the Ultimate SB Leadership award by answering the corresponding Yes/No question.

Last but certainly not least, you are invited to submit any combination of three types of evidence in support of your nomination: direct evidence coming from the stakeholder group in focus, direct evidence coming from the nominated brand itself, and/or indirect evidence from other sources such as the mass media and other third parties. “Evidence” in this context is loosely defined and can be in the form of audited data, interviews, case studies or anything else that helps argue in favor of your nomination.

*Small brands are companies with annual revenue of less than $10 million; medium brands are companies with annual revenue between $10 million and $100 million; large brands are companies with annual revenue of more than $100 million.