The Phoenix Awards™ inspire and recognize exemplary brownfield redevelopment and revitalization. Winning projects offer a fresh take on significant environmental issues, show innovation and demonstrate masterful community impact.
Winners are selected annually and there is no cost to enter. Every year, the application period opens on January 1st and closes on June 30th. All applications must be received by June 30th in order to be eligible for consideration. Each year, between 12-15 projects are honored.
One winner is selected from each of EPA's ten regions, and additional special winners are selected for community impact, sustainability or other special achievements. Projects are judged primarily upon:
  • Magnitude of the problems and the project,
  • Use of innovative techniques,
  • Cooperative efforts of multiple parties,
  • Positive impact on the environment, and conservation etc.)
  • Project's general and long-term economic and/or social  impacts community.
Phoenix Award winners receive a beautiful crystal trophy, international publicity in a variety of professional journals and newspapers, and highlight their successes and showcase their projects at the U.S. National Brownfields Conference held every 12 to 18 months.
Eligibility
Any Group
Any individual, group, company, organization, government body or agency is eligible to apply for a Phoenix Award. Applications may be submitted by an individual involved in the project or by a third party, with the primary project coordinator, e.g., property owner, environmental engineering firm, or project developer, or the entire project team listed as the applicant.
Completed Project
In order to be considered, the brownfield redevelopment project must have been completed by the date the application is submitted. Projects are deemed "complete" if the end-use is being conducted at the site.

Eligible for 2 years
Past Phoenix Award winners are not eligible for the same project in subsequent years. However, all previous non-winning applications will be considered automatically in the following year's review process. For the second year of consideration, applications may update their applications if they desire.

"Brownfields" Broadly Defined
Brownfield redevelopment projects are broadly defined under this award program to include:
  • Properties impacted by all types of real and perceived contamination, and
  • Remediated under any regulatory program (e.g., Superfund, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, brownfields, USTs, NRC decommissioning and voluntary cleanup programs).
Environmental or Community Initiatives
We encourage applications about projects that emphasize such environmental or community initiatives, such as:
  • BRAC Sites
  • Brownfield Sustainability Pilots
  • Community/Economic Development
  • Ecosystem Preservation
  • Energy Efficiency/Energy Alternatives
  • Green Buildings
  • Mine-Scarred Lands
  • Petroleum Brownfields
  • PortFields
  • RailFields
  • Smart Growth/Walkable Communities
  • Water Conservation/Usage Efficiency

Criteria
Successful applications will demonstrate measurable results and/or impact on environmental improvement and long-term economic and/or social benefits for the community.  Applicant projects are measured against five criteria:
  1. magnitude of the problems and project,
  2. use of innovative techniques,
  3. cooperative efforts of multiple parties to undertake the project, including financing solutions
  4. positive impact on the environmental (e.g., green buildings, greenways, energy conservation)
  5. project's general and long-term economic impacts on the community.
An independent panel of state, regional and federal government leaders, along with environmental, business and academic professionals will select the winners. The judges will evaluate each application based on responses to specific questions related to the project's overall effectiveness, use of innovative environmental solutions and impact on the environment and community.

Deadline
Applications must be received by June 30th each year. After sending the materials, confirm its shipment with an email to: denise.chamberlain@arcadis-us.com, and receipt of your package will be acknowledged by return email message.

Instructions
Please complete the following application form by providing applicant information and answering questions 1-25. In addition, please submit the following materials with your application form:
  • An Executive Summary (1-2 pages) explaining the project, the history of the site, the size of the site and the size of the area subject to remediation, how the site was cleaned up, what technologies or strategies were employed, how the site is currently being used and what the long-term environmental, economic or social benefits conferred upon the community. This is your best opportunity to succinctly explain for your project and the reason it is worthy of recognition.

  • One Letter of Support from someone who did not directly participate in the project but who is familiar with the success of the project. This letter should profile the community, e.g., population, demographics, and explain the impact of the project and its benefits to the community. The support letter must have the author's signature, but the signature may be created electronically or the hard copy of the original may be scanned into an electronic format.
  • A One-paragraph Description of Applicant's Organization or partnership and project participants. Also, please provide the project name exactly as you would like it to appear on the award.
  • Digital Images, suitable for reproduction, showing how the site looked before and after remediation and redevelopment. We will use the images of winning projects in PowerPoint award ceremony presentations, conference displays, and website success stories. Images should be in either a .jpeg or .tif file format, and provide the file with the highest level of pixels resolution available.
Formatting Instructions:
Limit of 20 Pages
The application may not exceed 20 single spaced pages, starting with Question 1 (not including the contact information page). Please use 12pt Times New Roman font and no less than .5" margins. Except for the Letter of Support and Digital Images, all application materials should be saved as Microsoft Word documents on computer CD disks.

Labeling Documents & Files
When saving documents or files onto the CD disks, please follow these guidelines for labeling or naming your files:
§

For example, a project from Region 1 would submit its application by labeling the electronic file as:
§ "Region1_ABCRedevelopmentProject_app.doc."
The photos would be labeled as a "Before" or "After" for ease of review:
§ "Region1_ABCRedevelopmentProject _beforephoto.jpg."