3-5 November 2026 – Join us in Madrid, Spain
3-5 November 2026 – Join us in Madrid, Spain
2026 CATEGORIES & SHORTLIST
3-5 November 2026 – Join us in Madrid, Spain
Recognising excellence and best practice, as determined by an international judging panel of leading industry experts.
This category is for specific high profile demolition projects with a contract value below US$1 million that imposed major challenges to successful completion or which required an innovative demolition approach. Entries should demonstrate these challenges and how they were successfully overcome, on time, within budget and safely.
Submissions should include demolition methodology statements, site waste management plans and any other relevant project documentation that will allow the judges to validate the Award Statement. Client testimonials concerning the work carried out should also be supplied if possible.
Who can enter? Open to all demolition contractors.
Safety and training go hand in hand. Entries should clearly show how the company has established an effective methodology to ensure safety during its daily operations through an company-wide safety and training ethos.
Entries should include information on lost-time incidents and injuries, and training programmes instituted and undertaken.
Who can enter? Open to all demolition contractors.
Tell the judges why your confined space or urban demolition contract should receive an award. It may have been unusually complex or demanding. It would have been delivered on time and budget, and completed safely. A client testimonial is expected, and control of noise, pollution and disturbance will be considered. Primary criteria against which entries will be assessed are:
Professionalism/Expertise; Impact Minimisation; Neighbourhood Relations Management; Client Satisfaction. Depending on the number of entries this may be split into two sections as in the past few years.
Who can enter? Open to all demolition contractors.
Tell the judges why your civil engineering/infrastructure demolition contract should receive an award. It may have been unusually complex or demanding. It would have been delivered on time and budget, and completed safely.
A client testimonial is expected. Primary criteria against which entries will be assessed are: Overall Professionalism/ Expertise; Overcoming the Specific Challenge; Financial & Schedule Management; Safety Record; Client Satisfaction.
Who can enter? Open to all demolition contractors.
Tell the judges why your industrial contract should receive an award. It may have been unusually complex or demanding. It would have been delivered on time and budget, and completed safely.
A client testimonial is expected, and control of noise, pollution and disturbance will be considered. Primary criteria against which entries will be assessed are: Professionalism/ Expertise; Hazard Remediation – Approach and Success; Approach to Recycling; Client Satisfaction.
Who can enter? Open to all demolition contractors.
This category recognises an innovative approach to the design and engineering of new mobile plant introduced between 1 July 2022 and 30 June 2023 that meets the specific requirements of the demolition and recycling industries.
Submissions should objectively demonstrate what is special or unique about the product and include background product development, the design requirements it had to meet and full product specifications. Please do not include sales brochures or other promotional material as part of the submission.
This category is for specific high profile demolition projects with a contract value in excess of US $1 million that imposed major challenges to successful completion or which required an innovative demolition approach. Entries should demonstrate these challenges and how they were successfully overcome, on time, within budget and with an exemplary safely.
Submissions should include demolition methodology statements, site waste management plans and any other relevant project documentation that will allow the judges to validate the Award Statement. Client testimonials concerning the work carried out should also be supplied if possible.
Who can enter? Open to all demolition contractors
The winner of this category will be able to demonstrate a commitment to reducing the environmental impact of its operations. As well as clear evidence of effective recycling strategies, the judges will be looking for evidence of “green” working practices, investment in cleaner equipment and effective control of noise, pollution and disturbance.
Primary criteria against which entries will be assessed are: Professionalism/Expertise; Environmental Impact Management; Approach to Recycling; Client Satisfaction.
Who can enter? Open to all demolition contractors.
The winner of this category will be able to demonstrate a commitment to reducing the environmental impact of its operations. As well as clear evidence of effective recycling strategies, the judges will be looking for evidence of “green” working practices, investment in cleaner equipment and effective control of noise, pollution and disturbance.
Primary criteria against which entries will be assessed are: Professionalism/Expertise; Environmental Impact Management; Approach to Recycling; Client Satisfaction.
Who can enter? Open to all demolition contractors.
Tell the judges why your blow-down contract should receive an award. It may have been unusually complex or demanding. It would have been delivered on time and budget, and completed safely. A client testimonial would normally be expected, and control of noise, pollution and disturbance will be taken into account.
Primary criteria against which entries will be assessed are: Professionalism/ Expertise; Contract Complexity; Impact Minimisation & Neighbourhood relations; Client Satisfaction.
Who can enter? Open to all demolition contractors.
This award will be made to contractors involved in specific projects that required a high degree of collaboration between all parties involved, including demolition contractor, main contractor and client. Entries should show the levels of collaboration achieved and the benefits that these generated to achieve a successful outcome.
The judges will require statements/information from all involved parties concerning their individual view of the success of collaboration, along with full project details indicating any elements whereby collaboration was essential in achieving successful completion of the overall project and/or specific phases.
Who can enter? Open to all demolition contractors.
The international judging panel will make an overall award to the entry that they believe to be the best across all categories. This award is not open to entries.
Organising the World Demolition Awards is huge task, and nothing is more important to us than ensuring that all award entries are judged fairly and on their own merits.
Our award judges are experts in the field of demolition and dismantling, and collectively have over 300 years of demolition industry experience.
Each year the judging panel consists of around 10 individuals, who are based in different locations around the world.
They follow a strict Code of Conduct.
The judging process we employ is one of independence and confidentiality.
Once the deadline for entries closes, the WDS programme organiser assigns three judges to each award category.
NO judge is ever given an award category that includes a company with which they are or have previously worked for.
We securely send each of the judges the award entries for the category they are judging.
NO judge has access to the entries sent to another judge, even if they are judging the same award category.
If a judge is marking more than one award category, which most do, these are also sent separately.
The judges review each project on its own merits, with consideration given to overall professionalism and technical expertise, how each project’s specific challenges have been overcome, financial and schedule management, safety, innovation, team management and client satisfaction.
Without comparing one project entry to another in its category, the judges then assign a mark out of 100 to each entry. This mark is based on what they feel, based on their expert knowledge and years of experience, is reflective of the entry.
Once each of the judges have finished marking an award category, they securely send their marks and any specific comments to the WDS programme organiser.
AT NO TIME, during the judging process or even after the awards have been given out at the World Demolition Awards ceremony, do the judges see how another has scored a project in any category.
This ensures that the integrity and independence of the judges’ expertise and opinions – and of the World Demolition Awards themselves – is maintained.
The WDS programme organiser then takes each of the judges’ marks for each project entry and adds them up. Thus, the project with the highest score is declared the award winner.
This process ensures that not even our judges know who has won any of the awards, until they are announced at the World Demolition Awards ceremony.
Only the WDS programme organiser knows who the winners are.
This information is kept strictly confidential, with relevant members of the KHL events and production team (around three to four individuals) only being told the names of the winners a few weeks before the ceremony, so that they can order the trophies and make the required graphics for the award ceremony.
This is why our industry awards are the most coveted and highly respected in the world.
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The World Demolition Summit 2026 is created and organized by Demolition and Recycling International magazine and its publisher KHL Group, in partnership with the European Demolition Association and with the support of the National Demolition Association.
Novotel Madrid Center
O’Donnell Street, 53. 28009 Madrid, Spain
3-5 November 2026:
Welcome drinks reception
Conference and Awards
All the latest product and market news from the global demolition industry in digital format.
