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SE 2050 aims to support structural engineers in understanding, reducing, and ultimately eliminating embodied carbon in their projects by 2050. This means providing resources assembled by SE 2050 volunteers, but also sharing and celebrating the many accomplishments of individual signatory firms. The Recognition Program aims to do this by annually recognizing exemplary firms in five different categories that have gone above and beyond in terms of developing and implementing strategies to limit their carbon impact. Four of these categories correspond to the primary sections of Embodied Carbon Action Plans: Best in Education, Best in Reporting, Best in Reduction, and Best in Advocacy. An additional category, Best Newcomer, will recognize outstanding contributions from firms who submitted their first ECAP in the last two years. Nominations and voting will occur in November and December and winners will be announced upon the release of the SE 2050 Annual Report.
Signatory firms will be able to nominate themselves or others using this form (once open). Winners of the recognition program from the previous year cannot be nominated for the same category they won. For companies that are self-nominating, they can submit themselves for up to two different categories. The information collected on the form will include the nominator’s name, email, and firm, the categories they would like to submit for, the company(ies) they are nominating, and the reason behind the nomination with a maximum character count of 750 (approx. 120 words). The reasoning should expand upon their ECAP section and describe its value, not just restate the language. The relevant ECAP section for each nominee will be included on the ballot for voters to easily access. For Best Newcomer, the nominating firm should submit up to four page numbers indicating which ECAP pages they want to be included on the ballot. The nominator can also submit a link to something they are referencing that was also referenced in the ECAP (will not contribute towards character count).
The nominees will be evaluated based on the electives outlined in the Program Requirements Guidance Document (pages 6-9) – both how many of the optional electives were fulfilled and the level of achievement reached. This evaluation criteria is also included in the nomination form to help nominators decide what to include in their submission.
In addition to being nominated, firms must meet the following criteria:
If there are 6 companies or fewer that meet this criteria, those 6 companies will go on to be voted on by the public. If there are more than 6 companies, SE 2050 leadership will narrow the selection of nominees based on quality of submission. If the firm of a leadership member is up for an award in a certain category, they will abstain from discussion and voting in that category, but can contribute in other categories.
The public vote will also be administered by a form and whoever receives a plurality of the votes will be the winner. The voting form will be tied to a voter’s email account to ensure no one votes more than once, but voting will be open to anyone with an email address (name, email, profession, and company data will be collected from voters). The reason for a public vote is to encourage firms to share their achievements wildly, but considerations regarding functionality and fairness will be assessed after the first year.
The information on the form will include the firm’s name, a link to the relevant section of the firm’s ECAP, and the blurbs submitted by their nominators (up to two blurbs if self-nominated and nominated by another company). The required and optional electives for each ECAP category will also be provided as guidance for voters as they select which firm they believe has gone the most above and beyond for each award category. In the event of a tie, multiple companies will be recognized. If a single company wins in two different categories, they will receive the award they won by a larger margin, and the other award will be given to the runner-up in that category. An example ballot section is shown here.
All winning companies will be featured on the SE 2050 website and in the SE 2050 Annual Report. Digital badges and hard copy certificates for each category will also be shared with all winners in case they would like to post about their win on social media.