And so the epic task of judging begins. We’ve had a total of 592 nominations representing 125 unique people, organisations or businesses.

The first week of July has seen us working flat out to profile everyone who is up for an award, and you can browse them on this ‘ere site. It’s been no easy task though (125 x 300 words = 37,500 words. That’s almost a novel) and we’re still waiting on a few, but the remaining stragglers should turn up any day now.

Feel free to leave comments for your favourite entries and the judges will be perusing the site during July and scoring each entrant in order to make the short list.

The scoring works like this: each entrant is assessed using the One Planet Living principles and is given a mark out of ten for each one. If a particular principle doesn’t apply to a certain business -  for example, a project to reclaim WEEE can’t really be judged on sustainable food – then no mark is given. The final score, however, is worked out as an average, dividing by the number of criteria judged on rather than the number of criteria available, so no one is marked down unnecessarily.

Here’s an example for a made up company called BirdCo, which campaigns to make life better for our feathered friends.

Zero carbon: 5/10
Zero waste: 7/10
Sustainable transport: 4/10
Local and sustainable materials: 8/10
Local and sustainable food: 8/10
Sustainable water: 4/10
Natural habitats and wildlife: 10/10
Culture and heritage: no score
Equity and fair trade: 6/10
Health and happiness: 7/10

The final score is 50% + 70% + 40% + 80% + 80% + 40% + 10% + 60% + 70% / 9 = 55.55

The top three entrants in each category then become the short list.

One important thing to remember here is marking is subjective, not qualitative. This isn’t about who makes the most money or drives the shiniest hybrid car. It’s about who’s making a difference in the best way they can. We’ve picked the judges for their deep knowledge around the issues of sustainability and the environment and to represent a good mix of thoughts and opinions. It’s kind of like peer reviewing, only with pretty trophies at the end.