Build the Emissions Evidence Behind a PPN 006 Carbon Reduction Plan

What is PPN 006 and when does it apply?

Procurement Policy Note 006 sets out how Carbon Reduction Plans and a supplier's commitment to net zero are taken into account for relevant procurements by central government departments, executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies. Under the current guidance, it applies to relevant public contracts for goods, services or works with an estimated value above £5 million per year including VAT, where the requirement is related and proportionate to the contract.

For procurements advertised on or after 24 February 2025, PPN 006 operates under the Procurement Act 2023 framework. Earlier procurements may remain under the previous PPN 06/21 arrangements. The substantive Carbon Reduction Plan requirement remains similar, but procurement terminology and process have changed.

A supplier does not receive a higher score simply for promising an earlier net-zero date. The Carbon Reduction Plan is assessed as a condition of participation: the question is whether the supplier's published CRP meets the required standard.

What must a PPN 006 Carbon Reduction Plan contain?

The official guidance requires a published Carbon Reduction Plan for the bidding supplier. It must confirm the supplier's commitment to achieve net zero by 2050 at the latest, report the required greenhouse-gas emissions, describe environmental management measures, and meet the publication and approval requirements. The plan should be reviewed and updated annually.

The emissions section includes UK Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions and a defined subset of five Scope 3 categories: business travel; employee commuting; waste generated in operations; upstream transportation and distribution; and downstream transportation and distribution.

The CRP should be published on the supplier's website, signed off at an appropriate level, and be current within the required period. Government guidance states that a supplier generally needs one valid CRP, which can be used across procurements where the measure is applied, provided it continues to meet the requirements.

How does GreenKPO support the PPN 006 process?

GreenKPO does not replace the Government Carbon Reduction Plan template or the supplier's procurement responsibilities. It provides the data and evidence workflow underneath the document. Your team loads or collects the activity data, GreenKPO applies the selected conversion factors, and each calculation remains linked to its source, factor and reporting period.

That gives the person completing the CRP a defensible baseline rather than a stand-alone summary number. It also makes the annual refresh easier: the previous year's structure is already in place, data gaps are visible, and changes can be explained against a consistent methodology.

Why does traceability matter in a public-sector bid?

The official CRP is a summary document, but the numbers still need a reliable basis. A tender or internal review may expose questions about boundaries, missing data, conversion factors or the reason a figure changed. When the source record, factor and calculation are retained together, the bid team can answer those questions quickly and consistently.

This is particularly important when carbon reporting is shared across departments. Procurement may own the submission, finance may own energy bills, HR may hold commuting information and operations may hold waste or logistics data. GreenKPO provides one structured place to bring those inputs together.

What if we are bidding through a group or parent company?

PPN 006 applies to the bidding supplier. In some circumstances a supplier can rely temporarily on a parent organisation's CRP, but the official guidance sets conditions around ownership, adoption of the parent's net-zero commitment, applicability of environmental measures and publication on the supplier's website. If group reporting is complex, confirm the correct boundary before drafting the plan.

Overseas suppliers can also be in scope when bidding for relevant UK procurements. The Government guidance focuses on UK operations and provides an approach where a supplier does not yet have UK emissions data.

How should you prepare before the tender deadline?

Do not wait for the bid portal to open before locating twelve months of energy, travel, commuting, waste and logistics data. A better process is to maintain the CRP dataset as an annual compliance asset. That means collecting the required categories, publishing the current plan, retaining the evidence behind it, and reviewing progress against your reduction measures before the next procurement starts.

GreenKPO makes that process repeatable. Once the first reporting boundary and baseline are agreed, the next annual update becomes a controlled refresh rather than a rebuild.