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 Sustainable Procurement Tools Platform contains:

• The Prioritisation Tool to help you identify priority commodities and projects through which you can address climate change
• The Sustainability Test to help you hone in on risks and opportunities in individual projects
• Step-by-Step Guidance on Climate and Procurement in-line with the stages of the Procurement Journey
• eLearning
• Best practice case studies 

These tools and guidance can help you decide when it is relevant to include climate criteria in your procurement exercise.

The Sustainability Test is a self-assessment tool designed to help buyers embed relevant and proportionate sustainability requirements consistently in the development of contracts and frameworks. The results of the Sustainability Test will give an indication if the contract is relevant and the different stages of the procurement process at which climate may be addressed, including suggested wording.

What are the Templates?

If you have identified that your procurement exercise is a relevant and/or priority contract, you may ask bidders to provide assurance of their awareness of and response to the climate emergency.   

This may be done by asking bidders to provide a completed Bidder Climate Change Plan template in the selection stage at SPD question 4C.7. 

Two templates have been provided to help both buyers and bidders as part of this process.  One has been designed specifically for Priority Contracts and the other for Relevant Contracts. 

Where the Organisation wants to reduce barriers to participation in a procurement process, they may wish to use the 'relevant' template for higher value/priority contracts. For example, for frameworks or Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) exercises, where a number of smaller enterprises may be expected to bid

The Bidder ‘relevant contract’ Climate Change Plan Template asks bidders to supply:

• Their organisation’s scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions sources

• A list of actions that the organisation is taking to achieve emissions reduction

As you can see from the above, the Bidder ‘relevant contract’ Climate Change Plan 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 supply the actions the bidder is taking to address their organisation’s carbon emissions.

In addition to further information below, the Supplier Journey provides detailed guidance, including sample completed templates to guide businesses on how to respond.

Meanwhile, the Bidder "priority contract" Climate Change Plan Template asks bidders to supply:

• their organisation's scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions sources
• their organisation's calculated scope 1 and 2 emissions
• a timeline for planned emissions reduction
• a list of actions that the organisation is taking to achieve emissions reduction

Where bidders are required to provide a climate change plan, the requirement to do so should be stated in the Contract Notice at III.1.3 Technical and Professional Ability (or if using the PCS SPD module, the relevant criteria box at Question 4C.7). 

You must attach the appropriate Bidder Climate Change Plan Template in the Procurement Documents (if using the PCS SPD module, the template can be added to the Postbox or if using PCS-Tender, the attachments area.)    

Blank Relevant and Priority Bidder Climate Change Plan Templates are included below as well as completed examples for several sectors.

Supplier Guidance on completing the templates is also included below and should be attached to your procurement documents along with the appropriate template.

You should seek assurance from bidders that they can provide a climate change plan when requested to do so at the appropriate stage of the procurement exercise.

The following table outlines how the plans should be evaluated.  

SELECTION SCORING GUIDANCE - for Question 4C.7 in the Qualification Envelope

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..

The online SPD module in PCS supports this by allowing bidders to save previously used answers and evidence within a supplier profile. This enables them to recall their saved answers when completing future SPD (Scotland) requests.

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, examples of which are detailed below.

Climate Change Guidance documents Climate Change Adaptation, Carbon in Production and Climate and Energy hosted on Sustainable Procurement Tools, each include an annex of example procurement clauses and KPIs relating to climate that you could also ask of bidders, as appropriate. 

Some other examples can be found in the table below: