Ensure sufficient resources are allocated to ensure there is relevant and proportionate monitoring of intended outcomes. This is a vital stage, to be able to demonstrate whether intended outcomes have been delivered or not and to identify lessons for further development or other contracts.
Where the contract focus is reducing vehicle emissions, relevant and proportionate performance indicators need to be developed and included as standing items in regular contract review meetings, to ensure delivery of intended outcomes.
The benefits of the contractual requirement must be quantifiable and measurable. Establishing a baseline may be easier in some contracts than others so contract management requirements must be relevant and proportionate.
According to the subject matter of the contract, these may include the use of vehicle testing, reports or data-sheets to evidence reductions in levels of transport mileage or even the incentive of profit sharing of fuel savings over the contract term.
The above will depend in part on the availability of a baseline against which improvement can be measured.
A new service contract which requires emissions to be minimised where practical from the use of vehicles may not have a baseline as it is a new requirement.
It may be appropriate to establish a baseline sometime after contract award, and improvements against this. This is dependent on whether robust and verifiable data is available to confirm the carbon emissions arising from the product, service or other procurement. In some cases, it is not practical or reasonable to determine a quantified baseline against which improvements can be measured. If so, is it possible to identify qualitative improvements? (See the Annex A - Contract and Supplier Management section for further detail regarding this and potential KPIs).
As an example, in service contracts relevant baselines may include:
Current vehicle fleet and emissions ratings.
Where contract conditions include a specific vehicle emission reduction requirement it must be considered whether this requirement is core to the contract or a secondary issue, as any remedy for breach of performance may be difficult to quantify. In this case a pre-agreed service credit or maintenance rebate would enable recompense for non-performance where termination of the contract would not be an option.
Ongoing improvement and innovation can also be built into the management of the contract to further develop the products and services required.
At contract award/ mobilisation there is always the opportunity to reach a voluntary agreement with the supplier that they will work with you to deliver agreed energy efficiency outcomes that can be captured as a contract commitment.
Where offsets have been determined to be relevant (only after all possible measures to mitigate vehicle emissions by the supplier) reporting may include detail of payments into verified offset schemes.
Where vehicle emissions reduction has been identified as an important issue for the contract but quantifying intended outcomes is problematic due to lack of reasonably available data (e.g. a service contract performed by small business or third sector organisations) it may be appropriate to seek qualitative detail of how the contractor is supporting vehicle emissions reduction ambitions.
In some cases, clear measures are available e.g. shifts in vehicle fleet to low/zero carbon vehicles, reductions in mileage due to improved use of telematics and route planning. In others there will be a narrative element to reporting.
Example Measures the supplier may undertake to lower vehicle emissions are as follows; delivery of fuel efficient driving training/ implementation of trialling of low/zero carbon vehicles/ a transition plan to move to low/zero carbon vehicles.
Within the Annex are examples of KPIs that may be relevant within procurements.
