Awards Terms & Conditions
1. PREAMBLE
1.1 The following terms and conditions (“Rules”) apply to any party interested to participate in the ESG Shipping Awards (the “Awards”) and are publicly available on our website at esgshippingawards.com (the “Website”).
The Awards have been established to recognize the best performing companies or organizations across a range of ESG categories. The Awards will promote best practices, innovation and leadership in the space of ESG within the Maritime industry.
1.2 By entering the Awards’ competition, you agree to be bound by the present Rules. More precisely, any interested person (including -inter alia- the candidates, the sponsors, and the members of the judging committee) by the submission/the acceptance of his participation accepts fully and unconditionally the Rules of the Awards.
1.3 The Awards are organized by “MARITIME IMPACT G.P.” – distinctive title “ESG SHIPPING AWARDS”– (“the Organizer”) under the auspices of the Hellenic Chamber of Shipping and the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy. The Organizer’s vision is to promote and recognize initiatives on ESG and Sustainability within the Maritime industry in Greece.
1.4 The Organizer reserves the right to cancel or amend the Awards or the Rules if an event outside of its reasonable control occurs (e.g., –inter alia– a catastrophe, war, civil or military disturbance, covid-19 measures). Participants in the Awards may not make any claim against the Organizer arising from the above actions, as well as from their participation in the Awards in general. The Organizer will make reasonable efforts to display any changes on the Website.
2. ENTERING THE AWARDS
2.1 The Awards are open to all companies and organizations in the Maritime industry with operation and presence in Greece. The Organizer accepts self-nominations as well nominations for companies from third parties. Entities can nominate projects, actions or best practices related to each Award category, i.e., ESG Leader Award, ESG Environment Award, ESG Climate Change Award, ESG Eco-efficiency Award, ESG Biodiversity Award, ESG Social award, ESG Health & Safety Award, ESG Community Contribution Award, ESG People Award, ESG Governance Award, ESG Diversity, Equality & Inclusion Award, ESG Technology Award, ESG Business Ethics Award.
2.2 The entities can provide information about their ESG activities, procedures, and policies. The actions must have taken place during 2022 (or until the submission day) and must be impactful, inclusive, and measurable. The interested to participate in the Awards entity should inform the Organizer about the existence of any confidential information included in its nomination description. It is clarified that if there are confidential elements, the Organizer will not make them public, but will disclose them to Judging Committee, which will evaluate but not disclose any confidential elements. The Organizer shall not be liable for any information in the nomination which is made public, and which was not identified as confidential at the time of submission of the nomination by the applicant, which is solely responsible.
2.3 Each entity can be nominated for up to three (3) categories, in order to allow more companies to enter the Awards’ competition.
2.4 The entries open from 17 January 2023 to 17 March 2023. Once a candidate has started his online entry, he may work on the submission up until 23.59 hrs. on the day of the deadline, i.e., 17 March 2023. Upon the lapse of the above date, no amendment to the submitted nominations can be accepted by the Organizer.
2.5 To enter the Awards nomination process, entities must login with an ESGSA account, or they can register for a new account. All candidates will have to fill in a form by answering a questionnaire and submitting any supporting documents, including but not limited to, sustainability reports, press coverage, recognitions or any internal material related to the ESG category. For the supporting documents the above under nr. 2.2 of the present Rules apply as regards the confidentiality.
2.6 Candidates at their entry agree that: a) all the data submitted are represented accurately to the best of their knowledge, b) they have not submitted/used any images or words that are in any way misleading, distasteful, obscene, libelous, defamatory, indecent, harassing or threatening, c) the documents uploaded/sent do not contain any computer virus or other material that may be harmful to the Organizer’s computer systems, d) they have produced the entry their selves without infringing any third party rights, and e) the decisions of the Judging Committee are not contested and no objections will be accepted or considered for the re-evaluation of the nominations (as a result, the candidates waive any and all claims as regards the above without any liability of the Organizer for any damages).
2.7 Candidates are not allowed to sponsor any award. Likewise, sponsors of the Awards cannot be nominated for them – if incidentally that happens their nomination form will be considered for the following year provided, they are not a sponsor again.
2.8 There is no entry fee for the nomination submission.
2.9 The Organizer is not responsible for any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, communications line failure, theft, destruction, alteration of or unauthorized access to entries, or entries lost, damaged or delayed as a result of server functions, technical issues, viruses, bugs or other causes outside our reasonable control. The Organizer may also, in appropriate circumstances, and at its sole discretion, reject, edit, remove or disable access to entries that appear to be legally or otherwise problematic.
2.10 Any personal data relating to candidates will be used in accordance with the Organizer’s Privacy Policy and will not be disclosed to a third party without the candidate’s prior consent.
3. SELECTION PROCESS
3.1 The finalists and the winners of each ESG category will be judged by a Judging Committee. The founding Judging Committee consist of seven (7) members. The Judges are members of non-for-profit organizations involving in Academia, Finance, Diversity, Health & Safety, Maritime, Decarbonization etc., experts in the respective ESG areas and shipping. The Judges must have a real passion about ESG and fulfill at least two of the bellow criteria:
- ESG/sustainability understanding (need for and benefits that derive from ESG),
- Good understanding of the Maritime sector,
- Knowledge of international/EU policies related to ESG or Maritime.
3.2 It is noted that the Judges are invited by the Organizer to undertake their duties on a personal basis in order to act under their capacity as individuals, irrespective of their current job position in any company/organization. However, each member of the Judging Committee should notify in due course the Organizer in case of change of his professional status (i.e., change of job).
3.3 The Organizer at any time has the right to add new members to the Judging Committee provided that the new members fulfill the above criteria. However, the new member(s) of the Judging Committee must be accepted by the majority of the other Judges.
3.4 In case of non-performance of his duties any Judge will be removed from the Judging Committee by the Organizer.
3.5 The Organizer will appoint a Chairperson to the Judging Committee acting as moderator. The said Chairperson will provide guidance to the judging teams and will resolve problems should they arise (e.g. a tie or a huge discrepancy in scores, conflict of interests, final decision). Moreover, the Chairperson will work closely with the Organizer to safeguard the robust standards and ethics of the judging process.
3.6 The Judging Committee will use an advanced screening and scoring methodology based on publicly available data and/or internal information provided by the candidate entities along with supporting material. The above-described screening and scoring methodology may be revised any time by the Organizer. The Judging process will be online and will take place between 20 and 24 March 2023.
3.7 The Organizer, upon the recommendation of the Judging Committee, reserves the right, after the submission of nominations, to merge or cancel categories, as well as to transfer nominations to a different category.
3.8 Once the evaluation period has been completed and the platform is closed, only the members of the Judging Committee and the Organizer have access to all the individual evaluations, the comments of the Judges and the scores for each nomination, thus validating the results and the procedure.
3.9 Strict rules of conflict of interest apply both for the Judging Committee and the selection process. For that purpose, every Judge prion taking up his duties should sign a Non-Disclosure Statement regulating among other and issues related to conflict of interest. Assessment and Scoring is secret and strictly personal to ensure the objectivity of the results and to ensure that the member of the Judging Committee is not influenced by the scores or opinions of others.
The Judging Committee do not score:
- Nominations submitted by a company/entity where they work for,
- Nominations submitted by a third company (e.g., a client) concerning a project/transaction/case in which the company any of the members of the Judging Committee works for, was involved.
In any case, while filling in a nominee’s evaluation form all members of the Judging Committee are bound to declare the existence of any relationship with the latter (i.e., the nominee) and to notify immediately the Organizer of any such relationship. The Organizer upon receipt of such a notification will assign to the Judging Committee (excluding the Judge concerned) to decide by majority if the member of the Judging Committee that has a relationship with a nominee that may result in conflict-of-interest must be disqualified from the scoring process.
3.10 The members of the Judging Committee process the data contained in the submitted entries solely for the purpose of evaluating the entries assigned to them in the context of the Awards and any use of such data by the judges for their own benefit or for any other purpose not directly related to the task of evaluating the entries and selecting the winners of the Awards is expressly prohibited.
3.11 The selection process is covered by strict confidentiality. The candidates will be kept confidential, and no public disclosure of nominations will be made except for those companies that are selected as the winners and finalists. Any nomination submitted and its supporting material will be kept confidential by the Organizer and the Judging Panel.
3.12 Once the selection process is completed, finalists will be informed individually to attend the Award Winners’ ceremony that will take place at the Megaron Concert Hall on Tuesday, 30 May 2023 (the “Event”). Winners are considered the three (3) finalists of each Award’s category and will be announced at the Event. The Winners may refer to their award (indicatively and not limited to social media, press releases, print and electronic media) using the title thereof as it has been awarded (verbatim) by the Organizer. Any variation of the award title (including its translation from Greek to English and vice versa) is expressly prohibited, unless expressly consented to in writing by the Organizer, the latter not being liable for any damage caused to participants of the Event or any third party, in case of non-compliance with the above.
4. SELECTION CRITERIA
4.1 The evaluation of the nominations by the Judging Committee is based on the information submitted by the candidates in their application. The Organizer is not obliged to check the truth, correctness and accuracy of the information submitted by the candidates. However, the Organizer has the right to cancel and/or disqualify and/or not award a nomination if it comes to its attention or if there are indications that the information submitted is false or inaccurate, or if essential elements have been omitted in the submitted nomination. In this relevance, if requested to do so, candidates should be able to provide evidence of what is stated in the application file. In any case, however the Organizer and the Judging Committee will not be held responsible in case of false or inaccurate statements, or suppression of essential information in a nomination.
4.2 The awards selection criteria follow International Standards (GRI, SASB, UN Global Compact, TCFD, Poseidon Principles, Green Award etc.). Candidates must demonstrate best practices in relation to each ESG Award Category. Best practices are considered effective ESG focused activities, governance, strategy, policies, procedures, KPIs, targets, training, performance monitoring, assessment and certification. This information gives insight into the profile and scale of the organization and provides a context to the Judging Committee for understanding the organization’s impact in each of ESG category, i.e.:
ESG Leader Award
Participants must demonstrate best practices in relation to Environment, Social and Governance and in relation to the ESG international standards such as GRI, SASB, UN Global Compact, SDGs or any other ESG standards.
ESG Environment Award
Participants must demonstrate best practices in relation to Environmental management and reporting, Air emissions, Energy Efficiency, Pollution prevention, Biodiversity, Climate strategy, Waste and Water related management, KPIs, targets, certification.
ESG Climate Change Award
Participants must demonstrate best practices in relation to Decarbonization, GHG emissions management, GHG emissions Reduction Targets, Energy Consumption and Climate Related Strategy.
ESG Eco – efficiency Award
Participants must demonstrate best practices in relation to Air emissions (CO2, CH4, PM etc.) Circular Economy, Pollution prevention, Waste and Water management, certification and assurance.
ESG Biodiversity Award
Participants must demonstrate best practices in relation to Biodiversity-related risks, level of exposure to biodiversity in the areas used for operational activities, potential Impacts and Biodiversity Strategy.
ESG Social award
Participants must demonstrate best practices in relation to Social Reporting according to international standards, Social indicators, Labor practices, Human capital development, Health & Safety, Diversity & Inclusion, Human Rights, Corporate Social Responsibility.
ESG Health & Safety award
Participants must demonstrate best practices in relation to Occupational Health & Safety policy, OHS management system, international standards (SOLAS, MARPOL, SUA), OHS Inspections.
ESG People Award
Participants must demonstrate best practices in relation to Human Capital Development, Talent Attraction & Retention, Training, Performance Appraisal.
ESG Community Contribution Award
Participants must demonstrate best practices in relation to corporate social responsibility and Philanthropic Activities, Community Contribution, Charitable Donations, Volunteer programs.
ESG Governance Award
Participants must demonstrate best practices in relation to Board Structure, Board diversity, Committees, Board Effectiveness, Materiality, Risk and Crisis management, business ethics, Technology, Sustainable Supplier Strategy.
ESG Diversity, Equality & Inclusion Award
Participants must demonstrate best practices in relation to working environment, Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment policy, Fair Treatment practices, Gender Diversity, Equal Remuneration and supporting freedom of association. In accordance with international standards on Labor and Human rights.
ESG Technology Award
Participants must demonstrate best practices in relation to any Technology and/or Innovation that prevent ESG related risks and capture ESG opportunities (Energy transition, Digital transformation, Cybersecurity etc.)
ESG Business Ethics Award
Participants must demonstrate best practices in relation to Codes of Conduct, Transparent Reporting, Anti-corruption & bribery, Anti-Competition, UN Global Compact.
5. PERSONAL DATA
5.1 The Organizer will not collect any personally-identifiable information about the entities that have submitted a nomination (name, address, telephone number or email address (“personal data”) through the Website unless they have provided their consent for that through the registration form from the Awards Website.
5.2 In compliance with the 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), the Organizer may collect information about the computer used to visit the Website, including IP addresses, operating system and browser types, for system administration. This is statistical data about the Organizer’s users’ browsing actions and patterns and does not identify any individual.
5.3 The Organizer reserves the right to use elements of the text of the nomination, which have not been declared as confidential, trademarks and distinctive features of the participants (i.e., judges, candidates, sponsors) in the context of promoting the Awards.
6. LIABILITY
The Organizer is not responsible for:
7. GENERAL TERMS
7.1 The Awards and these Rules are governed by Greek law and any disputes in relation to them are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Athens.
7.2 The present Rules may be revised at any time by the Organizer. In this relevance, any interested person is expected to check the Organizer’s Website from time to time to take notice of any potential changes. Moreover, some of the provisions contained in these Rules may also be superseded by provisions or notices published elsewhere on the Organizer’s Website.
