2027 IoT Environmental Impact Award

Submission overview

The 2027 IoT Environmental Impact Award recognizes connected technologies that help organizations reduce resource consumption, lower emissions, prevent waste, protect natural systems, and improve environmental performance. The award celebrates practical IoT innovation that turns real-world data into measurable progress for businesses, communities, infrastructure operators, and public agencies.

This program honors solutions that combine sensors, connected devices, networks, software, analytics, automation, and operational intelligence to address environmental challenges. Eligible entries may support energy and water efficiency, emissions monitoring, waste reduction, conservation, environmental compliance, resilient infrastructure, sustainable agriculture, building performance, or other outcomes that create a clear environmental benefit.

Strong submissions will show more than a promising concept. Entrants should explain the problem being addressed, how the technology works, where it has been deployed, and what changed as a result. Quantified outcomes, customer or client evidence, implementation details, and credible performance data will help judges understand the solution’s environmental value and potential for wider adoption.

Who should enter

Entries are welcome from companies, startups, research teams, system integrators, public-sector organizations, nonprofit organizations, sustainability teams, and customers deploying IoT solutions that produce documented environmental improvements.

Entry schedule

• Entries Open: Tuesday, January 5, 2027
• Early Bird Deadline: Friday, January 29, 2027
• Final Entry Deadline: Friday, February 26, 2027
• Winners Announced: Tuesday, March 16, 2027

Entry fees

• Early Bird Entry: $395
• Standard Entry: $495

Each submission must be entered separately. Organizations may submit multiple products, platforms, deployments, or projects when each entry represents a distinct solution or use case.

What to include in your submission

Describe the environmental challenge, the connected technology used to address it, the deployment environment, and the role of IoT data in producing the result. Explain the solution’s technical approach, implementation maturity, integrations, scale, and operational value.

• Quantified environmental outcomes, such as energy, water, emissions, waste, resource, or conservation improvements
• Deployment details, including locations, assets, users, operating conditions, and implementation timeline
• Customer, client, partner, or end-user identification when the entry relies on a real-world deployment
• Supporting evidence, including reports, dashboards, case studies, customer validation, images, videos, technical documents, or information URLs
• Any confidentiality, embargo, or publicity restrictions that judges and the IoThinkTank team should understand

Supporting collateral should make the entry easier to verify and evaluate. Include the strongest evidence available, and clearly distinguish measured results from estimates, projections, or planned outcomes.

Submission process

Step 1: Visit the application page and begin your submission.

Step 2: Complete the submission form with details about your solution, including the environmental challenge, the connected technology, deployment environment, integrations, measurable outcomes, and supporting evidence.

Step 3: Submit your entry by the early bird deadline for discounted pricing, or before the final entry deadline.

Judging criteria

• Environmental impact: the strength, relevance, and measurability of the environmental outcomes
• Innovation: technical advancement, differentiated methodology, or a meaningful improvement over existing approaches
• Evidence quality: credible metrics, customer validation, implementation details, and supporting documentation
• Scalability: the ability to expand across sites, users, assets, industries, communities, or geographic regions
• Operational value: practicality, reliability, usability, integration maturity, and the ability to support better decisions or automated action
• Contribution to IoT advancement: how the solution demonstrates the value of connected technology in creating environmental progress

Eligibility

The IoT Environmental Impact Award is open to organizations and individuals developing or deploying connected technologies with a clear environmental purpose. Commercial products, platforms, public-sector initiatives, research-led deployments, pilot programs, and customer implementations are eligible when the entry provides enough evidence for judges to assess the solution and its results.

Submissions should focus on work developed, released, updated, deployed, expanded, or publicly announced within the applicable award year. Entries may represent a new solution or a meaningful advancement to an existing technology, provided the submission clearly explains what changed and why it matters.