Where water efficiency and / or the reduction of embodied water are key issues within the contract, appropriate criteria should be incorporated into the specification and contract conditions. This enables relevant and proportionate performance indicators to be developed to ensure delivery, and improvement throughout the contract. This may include for example, the use of metering to measure reductions of water use or the incentive of profit sharing of water cost savings over the contract term, or the provision of evidence of the origin of materials or independent verification of process methods.
The benefits of the contractual requirement must be quantifiable and measurable, otherwise there is a risk that it may be unenforceable. The buyer must also consider 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.
At the point of potential award there is always scope to reach a voluntary agreement with the supplier that they will work with you to deliver identified (and agreed) sustainable outcomes that can be captured as a contract commitment. Ongoing improvement and innovation can also be built into the management of the contract to further develop the products and services required.
The Annex includes model wording that may be used for this purpose.
