The Single Procurement Document (SPD) standardised statements help procurement professionals create environmental management related selection criteria, where relevant and proportionate to do so. This can be done by including climate selection criteria in your SPD in question 4C.7 Environmental Management that requires bidders to provide a climate change plan at the selection stage.
We have produced two Bidder Climate Change Plan Templates to allow buyers to ask for scalable, proportionate climate information from bidders. One has been designed specifically for Relevant Contracts and the other for Priority Contracts.
A relevant contract is one that has a clear climate impact and through which the opportunity to embed relevant criteria in the contract has been identified.
The results of the Sustainability Test will give an indication of if the contract is relevant and the different stages of the procurement process at which climate may be addressed, including suggested wording.
A priority contract is a contract with a total value of £4 million or greater and/or that focuses on commodities identified as climate change priorities by your organisation.
To reduce barriers to participation in a procurement process, you may wish to use the ‘relevant’ template for higher value/ priority contracts. For example, for frameworks or Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) exercises where smaller enterprises may be expected to bid.
The Bidder ‘relevant contract’ Climate Change Plan Template asks bidders to supply:
The Template asks bidders to supply information on their organisation’s emissions sources but does not ask bidders to calculate their carbon emissions. This plan also requires bidders to detail the actions the bidder is taking to address their organisation’s carbon emissions.
Meanwhile, the Bidder "priority contract" Climate Change Plan Template asks bidders to supply:
The blank Relevant and Priority Bidder Climate Change Plan Templates and accompanying supplier guidance is available on the Procurement Journey. Along with the appropriate template the guidance document should be attached to your procurement documents.
The following table outlines how the plans should be evaluated.
SELECTION SCORING GUIDANCE - for Question 4C.7 in the Qualification Envelope |
|
|---|---|
SCORE |
DESCRIPTION |
Pass |
Production and submission of a Bidder Climate Change Plan that has been reviewed and signed off by a person in the business with authority. |
Fail |
No Bidder Climate Change Plan produced and submitted that has been reviewed and signed off by a person in the business with authority. |
To demonstrate that the business is fully committed to the actions detailed in the plan it needs to be signed off by a person with authority. Who an appropriate person is will vary widely depending on the size and type of business, but you should generally consider if the person signing is able to make these commitments on behalf of the company as a whole.
Bidders can reuse the information that has been provided in an SPD for a previous procurement procedure, as long as the information remains correct.
As the climate change plan template asks bidders about their organisational activities as a whole the measures outlined in the Bidder Climate Change Plan may initially seem relatively generic. However, you can also achieve contract specific climate measures through specification requirements or award criteria. See the Procurement Journey and the other Climate Change guidance on the Sustainable Procurement Tools for further examples.
