PPN 06/21: What Suppliers Need to Know

PPN 06/21 is a procurement regulation that has been in force since September 2021. If you supply into any company that bids for UK government contracts worth over £5m, it affects you, even if you never bid for a government contract yourself.

Here is how it works and why it has reached your inbox.

What PPN 06/21 requires

Procurement Policy Note 06/21 requires any company bidding for a central government contract over £5m to submit a Carbon Reduction Plan at the selection stage. This is a pass or fail requirement. No plan, no bid. You do not get scored on the quality of your plan. You either have one or you are excluded.

The plan must include a commitment to achieving net zero by 2050, current greenhouse gas emissions for Scope 1 and 2, a subset of Scope 3 emissions, environmental management measures, and details of how progress will be tracked. It must be published on the company's website.

How it cascades to suppliers

Here is where it gets relevant for businesses that do not bid for government contracts themselves. A Tier 1 contractor like Balfour Beatty or Morgan Sindall needs Scope 3 data in their Carbon Reduction Plan. Their Scope 3 includes emissions from their supply chain, which means they need data from you.

So the contractor asks their suppliers for carbon information. Those suppliers, in turn, may need data from their own suppliers. The requirement cascades downward through every tier. A manufacturer three levels removed from the original government contract can find themselves receiving a carbon questionnaire they did not expect.

In construction, this cascade is already well established. Laing O'Rourke requires Constructionline Gold, SCSS Bronze membership, and compliance with their Supply Chain Charter. Balfour Beatty applies a minimum 10% sustainability weighting in tender evaluations. Morgan Sindall has a Supply Chain Family of 415+ members covering 77% of their spend. If you supply into any of these companies, you are already in the cascade.

What this means in practice

Even if PPN 06/21 does not apply to your business directly, the effects reach you through your customers. The practical impact is that customers are asking for carbon data they never asked for before. Tenders include sustainability sections with real scoring weight. Supplier assessments now include environmental and governance criteria. Approved supplier lists increasingly require some form of sustainability evidence.

The Procurement Act 2023 has reinforced this by making social value and sustainability core evaluation criteria across public sector procurement, not just contracts over £5m. Companies can be excluded for poor environmental performance, and exclusion is public: supplier names are published in contract award notices.

What you should do

Calculate your Scope 1 and 2 baseline. This is the minimum requirement and the data your customers need most urgently. Utility bills and fuel records for the last 12 months, applied to government conversion factors, will give you the numbers.

Write a Carbon Reduction Plan for your own business. Even if you are not bidding for government contracts, having one shows your customers you take this seriously. It makes their job easier and reduces the risk of you being dropped from their supply chain.

Look at sector-specific requirements. In construction, SCSS Bronze membership is increasingly mandatory and is currently free to join. PAS 2080 accreditation is becoming a requirement for National Highways contractors. Understanding what your sector specifically requires saves you from doing generic work that does not count.

Our discovery session covers exactly this. 90 minutes and you walk away with a baseline, a gap analysis, and a clear view of what your specific customers need from you. Get in touch for current pricing.