The ACPN Medal is to recognize the contribution of young and experienced researchers to the advances of cleaner production and to the preservation of the environment​. The medal is inspired by the logo of the International Workshop on Advances in Cleaner Production 2007. Elements of the biosphere - nature and society - are represented in trees and buildings. The main driving force of the natural services used by society, renewable solar energy, transforms and circulates within the ecosystem. The arrow represents the ideal flow of resources in the biosphere as the basis of the planet's sustainability.

The tallest building is the icon building of the Paulista University, symbolically representing a teaching and research institution not only as the highest and most prominent institution of a sustainable society, but also the institution where the International Workshop and Advances in Cleaner Production Network was founded.

The medal and the box were made by hand, respectively, of brass and wood. The wood is from a special native tree from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest: jequitibá. Its leaves are reddish in the spring, its small flowers are white or red, and have a sweet and delicious aroma. In the native language (Tupi), it means "forest giant", which is understandable. Jequitibás appear in the relation of the largest trees of Brazil. In the forest, the adult tree of this species can be seen well above the others. Jequitibás may reach sixty meters high (approximately a twenty-story building).

A Jequitibá-rosa in the State Park of Vassununga, in Santa Rita do Passa Quatro, São Paulo, Brazil, can be considered one of the largest and oldest living beings in the world, with an estimated age of 3,050 years.