Only two weeks left to apply for the Sustain Wales Awards and the team has put together a helpful guide to how to get the entry in on time - with a chance of winning!

With only two weeks left to apply for the Awards, we've put together a few words of encouragement and advice from one of our judges to help you create that Award-winning entry.

As always we are looking for outstanding individuals, projects or initiatives that are helping to deliver the seven national goals of the Well-being of Future Generations Act but more importantly, are contributing to the environmental, social, cultural and economic sustainability of life in Wales. 

Our 2016 winners had some truly inspirational stories to tell with applications coming in lots of different shapes and sizes. From Halen Môn's approach to resource reduction and biodiversity enhancement to the collaborative 'Healthy Hillsides' project, tackling wildfires in the South Wales Valleys to Dŵr Cymru's ambition to reduce it's carbon emissions through initiatives like Rainscape.

Top tips on writing a winning application 

Cynnal Cymru Sustainability Consultant and judge, Rhodri Thomas, shares some of his top tops when writing your application:

Tell us what you have you changed as a result of your actions. What has made a real difference to your organisation, environment or your community.

Provide facts and figures to back up your application. This can include financial savings or carbon cutting. If it's a visual change, consider including before and after photos that help demonstrate how something has improved.

Remember to include the big and the little things as well as the high impact achievements make sure you capture the smaller things that have had a positive effect. Also try to include the surprising or unintended results that have made a difference.

Keep your answers concise and to the point - the judges have hundreds of entries to read so keep it simple and focus on the highlighting the key achievements of the project to really grab the judges' attention. Try to use plain English, avoiding specialist jargon or over technical descriptions.

Sustainability is all about long-term thinking, so your submission can be part of a much bigger project. The key criteria is that your project has reached a significant milestone which has already created change.

Always keep in mind the Five Ways of Working outlined in the Application Guidance pack.