SEAL Awards


SEAL Awards are an environmental advocacy organization that uses annual awards for businesses and journalists to support environmental initiatives and to fund grants in the field of policy research. The name is an acronym for sustainability, environmental achievement, and leadership. The Awards were created in 2017 by businessman Matt Harney.

Award categories

Business Sustainability Awards

These awards honor corporate sustainability initiatives, sustainable products, and environmentally responsible innovation. Application fees for this award fund social impact campaigns and research grants.

Environmental Journalism Awards

Twelve journalists each year receive recognition for environmental reporting, particularly investigative journalism. Past award winners include writers for traditional news media such as The Guardian and more recent, web-based platforms like Grist and Mongabay.
Year of awardJournalistPublication
2017The Guardian
2017The New Yorker
2017Inside Climate News
2017Mother Jones
2017The Atlantic
2017The Guardian
2017The Washington Post
2017Fast Company
2017The New York Times
2017Vox
2018The Guardian
2018CalMatters
2018Ars Technica
2018Grist
2018HuffPost
2018National Geographic, Vice
2018The Washington Post
2018Bloomberg Environment
2018The New York Times
2018Vox
2018The New York Times
2018The Guardian
2019HEATED
2019The New York Times
2019Earther/Gizmodo
2019The Guardian
2019Vox
2019National Geographic
2019The Atlantic
2019Fast Company
2019Vox
2019The New York Times
2019The Guardian
2019Time
2020NPR
2020Mongabay
2020The Washington Post
2020The New York Times
2020The Guardian
2020Hot Take
2020Earther
2020HuffPost
2020Grist
2020Volts (newsletter)
2020MIT Technology Review
2020Grist
2021Al Jazeera English, The Guardian
2021Vox, Mother Jones, Grist
2021The Atlantic
2021The Boston Globe, Earther
2021Time
2021Grist
2021CNN
2021Volts (newsletter)
2021The New York Times
2021Forbes, The Financial Times
2021ProPublica
2021Bloomberg News, BuzzFeed News
2022The Narwhal
2022Mongabay
2022Floodlight
2022Mongabay
2022Africa Climate News
2022Yale Climate Connections
2022ProPublica
2022Grist
2022The Guardian, National Geographic
2022Earther/Gizmodo
2022The Hill
2022Grist, Sierra Magazine
2023Los Angeles Times
2023Southeast Asia Globe
2023The Washington Post
2023The Hill
2023The Third Pole
2023Mongabay
2023freelance
2023Heatmap News
2023Mongabay
2023freelancer
2023The Boston Globe
2023Grist
2024Inside Climate News
2024Reuters, Dialogue Earth
2024Carbon Brief
2024Politico
2024Grist
2024Capital B News
2024DeSmog, The Guardian
2024Mongabay, Hakai Magazine
2024Grist
2024The Guardian
2024The Narwhal
2024The Guardian

Impact Campaigns

SEAL Awards have advocated for the creation of a credit card whose interchange fees would pay into climate change programs rather than a traditional credit rewards program, targeted cup waste in the Starbucks café chain and Yelp reviews of restaurants using plastic straws, and endorsed Jay Inslee for the 2020 United States presidential campaign. The environmental rewards credit card was presented as an open-source concept in a detailed business case launch memo.

Environmental Research Grants

The research award is a monetary grant for graduate students and post-doctoral researchers at the beginning of their careers in environmental policy.