SABERA Awards 2026 – 9th Edition

Honoring Excellence in Social Responsibility and Impact

The SABERA Awards 2026 celebrate impactful work in social responsibility, sustainability, and enterprise innovation. Open to large, medium, and micro organizations, the awards recognize initiatives executed between April 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026.

Evaluation Process

The multi-tier evaluation ensures transparency and credibility:

1. Internal Review & Validation: Entries verified by consulting partners.
2. Online Screening (October 2026): Pre-screening council scores entries, with the top 5 in each category shortlisted.
3. Grand Jury Meeting (November 2026): Final winners selected by an eminent panel.

Key Dates

• Eligibility Period: April 1, 2025 – March 31, 2026
• Online Screening: October 2026
• Grand Jury: November 2026

Why Apply?

1. Gain Recognition: Showcase your work on a prestigious platform.
2. Amplify Impact: Increase visibility and reach for your initiatives.
3. Media Partnerships: Benefit from strategic collaborations and coverage.
4. Access Opportunities: Attract support from CSR funders and leading corporates.
5. Thought Leadership: Establish your position as a leader in impact-driven innovation.

Award Categories

Entries are invited across multiple categories, ensuring inclusivity and highlighting measurable impact across sectors.

Submit Your Entry Now!

Be part of a movement driving positive change.

 CRITERIA A, B, & C focusing on Impact of outreach

(An overall submission of not more than 1500 words equal weightage to all criteria)

IMPACT IN CONTEXT
SABERA evaluates impact in proportion to the resources available to an entrant. Scale alone does not determine merit; the Jury will consider the depth, relevance and effectiveness of impact relative to the organization’s resources and context.

Evaluation will be based on work executed during 1 April 2025–31 March 2026. Submissions should not exceed 1500 words.

While the criteria remain the same, evaluation will consider each entry’s topline and impact relative to resources. Awards will be given across the applicable ₹5 Cr/₹500 Cr+, below ₹5 Cr, and under ₹40 Lakh turnover brackets.

Context & Strategic Approach (500 words) 25%
Including body of work and commitment towards job/community/society/SDG. Explain why you should win the award, delineating the challenge addressed, the solutions proposed and the impact made. It can include core values & vision, succinctly highlight CSR & Sustainability policy, and Responsible business initiatives undertaken wherever applicable.  Succinctly highlight annual reports/returns if applicable.

Note: Reports including CSR, Sustainability, and Business Responsible Report if applicable should be added as supporting documents to what is being mentioned here. 

Innovation (300 words) 25%
Overall strategy to identify and the subsequent execution to address the challenge. Delineate the implementation strategy based on insights, monitoring & evaluation methodology, and optimal use of resources. Further, establish the involvement of stakeholders, demonstrated accountability, roadblocks if any, and the strategy to overcome the same.

Impact (300 words) 25%
The overall change in status quo on the identified challenge. Successful projects executed. Clearly state the Depth (quality), Breadth (number) & Target segment. What is the short & long-term Impact? Please provide data collected, verified (internally), and validated (externally). Also, if there is any change in strategy based on monitoring and evaluation that was undertaken and subsequent execution.

Scalability (300 words) 25%
Sustainability of outcome after completion, exit strategy if any, future plan, or possibility to scale. Ensuring a long-term solution that can be replicated in other parts of the country faced with similar challenges. You must also include growth from previous years here if applicable. IMP NOTE: Include growth in depth and breadth from the previous financial year including numbers reached and impact created especially for Category A &B.

Supportive Documents
Please submit Supportive documents/PPT/ AV / Age Certificate & Certificate of recommendation from the reporting Boss if applicable/ a few photographs with the beneficiary or TG along with a portrait photo of yourself.

Note: Documents should be uploaded on Google Drive/YouTube and the link to be shared here in Public Sharing Mode. Images & videos will be used for creating winner avs.

CRITERIA D Responsible Business & Promising Responsible Business, focusing on internal processes, impact, and ESG

Evaluation will be based on the work executed in the financial year starting 1st April 2025- 31st March 2026. Overall submission should not exceed 1500 words. While the criteria remain the same, the evaluation process will consider the top line of each entry and the impact thereof given the resources. The Responsible Business trophy is awarded in the above 500cr and the Promising Responsible Business above 5cr topline.

Promising Responsible Businesses should be at least 3 years in operation and not more than 10 years. They may or may not fall under the CSR ambit.

Since CSR should, by definition, be separate from business operations, category D will focus specifically on business sustainable practices and alignment with ESG principles.

(An overall submission of not more than 1500 words equal weightage to all criteria)

Covering Note (300 words)
Explain why you should win the award, clearly delineating the challenge addressed, the solutions proposed, and the impact made. It can include core values & vision, succinctly highlight Business Sustainability policy, and Responsible business initiatives undertaken wherever applicable. Measures have been undertaken to ensure governance and establish credible work ethics, and transparency that seeps through all stakeholder engagements and business policies. Succinctly highlight annual reports/returns if applicable.

Measures have been undertaken to ensure governance and establish credible work ethics, and transparency that seeps through all stakeholder engagements and business policies.

Body of work (200 words)
Including body of work and commitment towards job/community/society/SDG.

Innovation (200 words) 
Delineate the problem addressed and the solutions proposed challenging the status quo.

Impact (200 words) 
The effect of the organization on the environment, economy, and people indicates its contribution to sustainable development. The Impacts can be negative or positive, focused & intended or unintended/by-product, and reversible or irreversible. Clearly state the Depth (quality), Breadth (number) & Target segments. What is the short & long-term Impact?

Growth (200 words) 
Sustainability of outcome after completion, future plan, or possibility to scale. Ensuring a long-term solution that can be replicated in other parts of the country faced with similar challenges. IMP NOTE: Include growth in depth and breadth from the previous financial year including numbers reached and impact created.

Ethics & Transparency (200 words)
Measures have been undertaken to ensure governance and establish credible work ethics, and transparency that seeps through all stakeholder engagements and business policies. Succinctly highlight annual reports/returns if applicable.

Shining Moments (200 words) 
Including industry body representations, membership or acknowledgments, and achievements.

Supporting Documents
Please submit Supportive documents/PPT/ AV Including Sustainability & Responsible business reports/annual returns if applicable.

Note: Documents should be uploaded on Google Drive/YouTube and the link to be shared here in Public Sharing Mode. Images & videos will be used for creating winner avs.

Lifetime Achievement Criteria

Submit information in not more than 500 words including industry body representation, achievement challenging status quo, and the complete body of work as committed towards the development of the country. The individual can be an officer in service, an entrepreneur, or a development professional with a minimum of 30 years in service. Entry to be submitted with supporting av of work and photographs through email (suparnaa@simplysuparnaa.com) or mail reaching the SABERA representative before the cut-off date.

The Judging Process

After internal checks and external validation, all nominated entries will go through the first round of an online screening all through October by the pre-screening council which will assign criteria-based scores. Each entry will be screened by at least 3 jurors and a mean average score will be assigned to each criterion.

The top-scoring entries in each category will make it to the shortlist. These entries from all categories will be put to discussion with the collective Jury board and the winner will be chosen through consensus and, if required, through voting. If any Jury member has a direct or indirect connection with any of the entries being evaluated, they will be asked to recuse themselves from judging the same.

Jury Guidelines

• Evaluation will be done on the criteria given for each category.
• Evaluation by the jury will be solely on the entry submitted, in an independent and objective manner.
• The jury member will abstain from scoring and/or voting on any work that they or their organization have been involved with directly or indirectly. Please mention the reason for abstaining from scoring an entry.
• Entrants may have submitted multiple entries. The jury will score each entry on its own merit and not against the other entries submitted by an organization.
• Scoring: Entries are ranked on a scale of 0 to 5 with 0 being the lowest score and 5 being the highest.
• Each entry is scored by multiple jury members and a mean average score is assigned to all the criteria based scores.
• The top 5 scoring entries through the pre-screening are then evaluated through the final jury meet for the SABERA trophies to be awarded.
• There is space for Jury remarks in the box against each entry and in case the jury may require further information the SABERA team will source the same for them to take an informed decision.