Certification
WHC celebrates your certification through a variety of channels, and can offer guidance on how to leverage your certification for your company’s internal and external communications activities.
The WHC Awards, presented annually, recognizes excellence in corporate conservation. Recipients include both national and international companies across a variety of industry sectors.
Corporate Conservation Leadership Award
Our top award honors one company’s overall achievement in conservation efforts, and signifies an exemplary level of corporate commitment to biodiversity and conservation education, and meaningful alignments with global conservation objectives.
Employee Engagement Award
Presented to one organization, this award recognizes a company’s involvement in conservation through the sheer force of its employee teams who participate in its habitat and conservation education activities.
Gold Program Award
This award recognized the overall depth of one exceptional program in the Gold Certified tier.
Project Awards
Projects are recognized for their excellence in each of the WHC Project Guidance themes, such as Pollinators, Bats, Grasslands, etc. This category offers projects of all sizes the ability to compete for recognition.
Avian Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest-scoring projects in this theme, the project demonstrates adequate monitoring of targeted species and at least 1 associated factor (e.g. food sources), and the project must be adaptively managed.
Awareness and Community Engagement Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project meets a need identified by an external group, company or community group based on study or other information, and must clearly relate to a habitat or species project on-site (or support some other conservation project).
Bats Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project demonstrates adequate monitoring of targeted species and at least 1 associated factor (e.g. food sources), and includes evaluation of monitoring results to develop next steps for the project.
Caves and Subterranean Habitats Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project must have appropriate adaptive management practices, adequate monitoring, and includes evaluation of monitoring results to develop next steps for the project.
Desert Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project must have appropriate adaptive management practices, annual monitoring, and includes evaluation of monitoring results to develop next steps for the project.
Forest Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project must be adaptively managed using appropriate techniques, and monitored adequately at least once per year with results evaluated to create next steps.
Formal Learning Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project must be mapable to academic standards, meet a need identified by the community, and clearly relate to a habitat or species project on site (or support some other conservation project).
Grasslands Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project demonstrates adequate monitoring of vegetation at least two times a year or adequate monitoring of vegetation at least annually, demonstrates adequate monitoring of at least 1 additional aspect (e.g. wildlife use), and uses the evaluation to create next steps for the project.
Green Infrastructure Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project demonstrates that there are multiple features of the project that directly impact biodiversity, and the information about the biodiversity impacts are shared.
Invasive Species Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project demonstrates adequate annual monitoring, and the control and prevention methods should incorporate appropriate practices.
Landscaping Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project has an adequate monitoring protocol, and the results of the evaluation are used to create next steps for the project.
Mammals Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project demonstrates adequate monitoring of the targeted species, and the monitoring results are used to create next steps for the project.
Marine Intertidal Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project must be adaptively managed using appropriate techniques, and monitored adequately at least once per year with results evaluated to create next steps.
Other Habitats Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project is adaptively managed using appropriate techniques and monitored adequately with results evaluated to create the next steps for the project.
Other Species Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest-scoring projects in this theme, the project demonstrates adequate monitoring of targeted species and at least 1 associated factor (e.g. food sources), and the project must be adaptively managed.
Pollinator Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project demonstrates adequate monitoring of targeted species at least once per year and at least 1 associated factor (e.g. food sources), and should have a policy integrated into overall site operations to minimize, eliminate or apply responsible use practices of pesticides and herbicides with supporting documentation.
Remediation Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project demonstrates that outcomes have some direct ecological benefit, and the information about the biodiversity impacts are shared.
Reptiles and Amphibians Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project demonstrates adequate monitoring of the targeted species and at least 1 associated factor (such as food sources), and uses the results of monitoring data to create next steps in the project.
Species of Concern Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project must include a commitment to long-term or permanent protection, and the data collected about the target species during monitoring is shared with external organizations.
Training Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project must meet a need identified by an external group, company or community group based on study or other information, and the project must clearly relate to a habitat or species project on-site ( or support some other conservation project).
Wetlands Project Award
Awarded to one of the highest scoring projects in this theme, the project demonstrates adequate monitoring and use of monitoring data to create next steps in the project.
WHC can provide the following to help your company’s communications activities:
Programs that have achieved WHC Conservation Certification are given one of the following designations: Certified, Certified Silver or Certified Gold. This tier system was established to recognize levels of achievement and encourage improvement.
Motivate your team to implement powerful and impactful programs with the incentive of being designated as a Gold or Silver program. In addition to recognition at the Conservation Conference and eligibility for WHC Awards, program tiers offer an addition level of promotion, including:
Tiering levels are reviewed each year and are subject to change from one year to the next. These adjustments do not change previously certified program levels. If you have any further questions, please contact conservationcertification@wildlifehc.org.
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