[headline tag=’h3′]Evaluation of Best Practices[/headline]

The Evaluation Criteria used for assessing the NEES Project Best Practices was grouped into five broad and equally weighted categories, summarised below. These criteria sorted the survey questions into groups of around ten questions. A mark (out of 10) is then given for each category to enable the NEES experts to apply their own subjective weighting for individual products and services.

This is intended to allow the NEES experts to apply their own knowledge where information is missing, or to reward (or penalise) a product or service that performs particularly well or poorly on an individual criterion. For example, under ‘Environment and Health’ if a product or service uses a particularly hazardous substance, but otherwise scores well in this category, experts may judge this sufficient to override returning a higher mark. Any such judgements must be justified and recorded on the Evaluation Sheets.

The five categories used are as follows:
Resource Efficiency:  This covers the energy efficiency improvement made by using the product / service, lifespan and maintenance, and lifecycle issues such as the use of recycled materials, processing and disposal at end of life.
Environment and Health: This covers the use of ‘natural’ materials sourced from environments in the NPP, the impact on climate change of their production (their embodied energy – i.e. their cradle-to-gate / site carbon footprint), and any other environmental or human health impacts from production, installation and use – such as pollution and the use of hazardous materials.
Sustainability: This category covers the longer term sustainability of supply and distribution networks, ‘bioregionalism’, how the use of the product / service reflects regional architecture, and compliance with conservation legislation. This will allow experts to reward products or services that meet the broader NEES objectives but could be made more sustainable in the long term (for example by improving the efficiency of the supply chain) if demand were to increase as a result of involvement with the project.
Enterprise: This category covers the current status of the product / service (and, if applicable, the range of products / services) on the market, including costs of installation and maintenance, current turnover of the company / organisation, and the status of any existing competitors.
Scalability: This covers the future market potential of products and services in light of current opportunities or barriers to achieving a greater market share, and allowing for the assessment of the likely benefits of promoting the product or service through NEES. It serves as a counter-balance to ‘Enterprise’ by rewarding products or services with a high potential to grow their market share through involvement with the project.

Further information
Experts will declare any financial or commercial interests with the applicants at the outset of the meeting and excuse themselves from the relevant discussion(s). Only one overall score will be recorded under each category, however, this will be justified by notes against the individual criteria.
The NEES Project does not expect applicants to have answered all the survey questions (not all of which will be relevant to every product / service) and allowances will be made with respect to their ability to provide this information. Where details are not provided, experts will be asked to draw on their own knowledge, however, this will be made clear in the relevant comments.

A full list of the survey questions may be downloaded from the NEES original website. Any further questions or clarifications regarding these criteria may be directed to:

Dr Keith Baker
The NEES Project
Glasgow Caledonian University
Tel. +44 (0) 7884 125540
Email: keith.baker@gcu.ac.uk