The objective of the prize is to identify examples of particularly exemplary partnerships, to put them in the focus of a broader audience and to present them as best practice examples to other companies based in Germany and abroad.

The award is sponsored by the German Sustainability Award Foundation in cooperation with PRIMAVERA.

Within the framework of the International German Sustainability Award, an award is presented to a German company and its partner company in the Global South.

The winning companies receive an award which symbolises the logo of the German Sustainability Award. They will be guests on stage at the award ceremony on the 4th of December 2026 at the Maritim Hotel in Düsseldorf.

All companies based in Germany are eligible to participate. They apply with a partnership, whereby the company in the Global South gives its consent and submits a statement on the cooperation. Only the previous year's winners of the German Sustainability Award for Corporate Partnerships are not eligible to apply.

To participate in the competition for the International German Sustainability Award, the companies must complete an online questionnaire. It collects the essential information about the partnership on the basis of key questions.

The application period ends on 29 July 2024. During this period, the online questionnaire is available.

No, your application is free of charge.

Yes, only the previous year's winners of the International German Sustainability Award cannot apply

At the end of the application phase, all questionnaires are reviewed and evaluated by the assessment partner teams. After the questionnaires have been evaluated by the assessment partners, all applicants will receive feedback in September 2026 as to whether they have been nominated for the International German Sustainability Award.

The jury of experts will select the winner on the basis of the documents submitted. The jury meeting is expected to take place in October 2026.

The jury of experts will decide on the winners based on the documents submitted and the individual assessment of each applicant, overall assessment of the nominee platform and voting. The jury meeting is expected to take place in October 2026. The finalists will be informed of their results in the days following the jury meeting. The winning partnership will not be announced until the evening of the award ceremony, the 4th of December 2026.

No, only the nominated partnerships, finalists and winners will be announced.

The questionnaire must be completed in German. The English version is for the information of the partner companies in the Global South. The organizers will not be able to provide the documents in other languages. The agreement and optional statement of the partner cpmpany from the Global South must be submitted in German (or in English) to ensure equal opportunities for all applicants.

The congress will take place on 3rd and 4th of December 2026 at the Maritim Hotel in Düsseldorf (Maritim-Platz 1, 40468 Düsseldorf). The International German Sustainability Award will be presented on the evening of the 4th December 2026.

Please check your spam folder, the email may have landed there. If this is not the case, please contact the office of the German Sustainability Award at buero@nachhaltigkeitspreis.de or 0211 / 5504 5510.

You can reset your password on the start page and select a new one.

Yes, participation in the competition is only possible by completing the online questionnaire. The PDF file of the questionnaire is for preliminary information purposes only.

Yes, you can upload additional supplementary files. Please note the page limit (max. 20 pages combined into one PDF). If the uploaded information is to be assigned to specific passages of your application, please provide a brief reference. References and web links to further documents, websites or pages in the sustainability report that go beyond this cannot be considered by the jury. Please refrain from sending additional materials by post. These cannot be considered.

No, once the application has been submitted, no further processing of the questionnaire is possible.

Yes, in the “Submission” tab (top right of the window) you have the option of saving the entire questionnaire as a PDF or printing it out before submitting it.

All information provided in the questionnaire will be treated confidentially. The data will only be accessed by a small group of individuals employed by the German Sustainability Award and the assessment partners who are directly entrusted with the collection and evaluation of the data as well as with the preparation of the jury meeting. Participants will only be published in the event they have been nominated for or have received an award.