In June ’26 Seedling held an informative webinar providing guidance on Net Zero requirements in public sector tenders. Following on from our previous posts on this topic, we thought it would be useful to re-cap the key take-aways from the webinar, that can help bidders improve their Net Zero strategy when bidding for public sector contracts – covering both NHS and government approaches.
What is PPN 006?
- PPN 006 (Procurement Policy Note 006) is the document that outlines how bidders must report their carbon emissions and demonstrate their commitment to Net Zero – when bidding for high value contracts. This applies to central government contracts valued at £5million and over.
- PPN 006 provides a template that bidders can use to layout their Carbon Reduction Plans.
- For other public sector authorities and government departments, adherence to PPN 006 is optional/discretionary. Where buyers include the requirements of PPN 006 in their procurement approach and tender pack, bidders will need to meet the requirements as stated in that tender.
- When a carbon reduction plan is submitted, this is assessed and will either pass or fail.
- Once an organisation has drafted and signed off on their Carbon Reduction Plan, it should be publicly available and displayed via a link on their website.
- All Carbon Reduction Plan’s need to be updated within 6 months of financial year end.
What is the NHS Evergreen assessment?
- For suppliers bidding to the NHS, buyers may request a Carbon Reduction Plan (as per PPN 006) and/or completion of the NHS Evergreen assessment.
- Evergreen is hosted on the Atamis portal and consists of 170+ questions.
- The Evergreen Assessment is scored based on the maturity of the bidding organisation in their journey to reduce carbon and achieve Net Zero. Level 1 of Evergreen is equal to a compliant Carbon Reduction Plan.
- NHS carbon reporting approach is due to evolve in 2027/8 and again in 2030. It is anticipated that all participants will achieve Level 3 by 2027.
Achieving Net Zero
- To achieve Net Zero, the first step is to reduce your organisations carbon emissions, which are calculated and reported using Scopes 1, 2 and 3:
- Scope 1 emissions occurring on site – e.g. from heating, equipment, air con leakage; fuel burned by vehicles
- Scope 2 energy purchased for sites (e.g. electricity, steam, heating/cooling)
- Scope 3 – everything else! This currently includes logistics, waste, business travel and employee commuting.
- Once carbon emissions have been reduced as far as possible, organisations can look to the funding of carbon removal projects, to support their achievement of their net zero target.
- Seedling recommend aligning with SBTi Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) – a framework developed to standardise the approach to tackling emissions at source. It is worth checking that any advisors you work with on carbon and net zero are aligned to this globally recognised standard.
To summarise
We recommend connecting with Seedling to learn first-hand about carbon reduction and net zero developments.
We recommend their SME friendly services – using their bespoke platform they have supported a number of our clients to calculate their emissions for reporting and submitting as part of live tenders. Their platform provides a mechanism to measure, reduce, offset and report on carbon emissions.