PPN 006 (originally issued as PPN 06/21 in 2021 and renamed in February 2025) is a UK Government Procurement Policy Note that requires suppliers bidding for central government contracts above £5 million per year to publish a compliant Carbon Reduction Plan (CRP).
The CRP must be a public, board-signed document that sets out the supplier's current Scope 1, 2, and a defined subset of Scope 3 emissions (Categories 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9), commits to net zero by 2050 or sooner, and lists specific environmental management measures the supplier will implement.
Why it matters
Without a compliant CRP, suppliers are excluded from the procurement process entirely — irrespective of price or capability. The same template has been adopted by the NHS under its Net Zero Supplier Roadmap, by many local authorities, and increasingly by private-sector buyers as a procurement signal.
Compliance is a binary check: the document either matches the published template structure or it does not. This makes the methodology behind it — boundary definition, scope coverage, emission factors used — directly material to whether a tender bid succeeds.
A practical example
A medical device manufacturer wins a place on the NHS Supply Chain framework. Within 30 days of award, the framework requires a published CRP showing baseline Scope 1, 2, and the relevant Scope 3 categories, alongside a commitment to net zero by 2050 and named reduction measures. Without it, the contract cannot be activated.
We produce PPN 006-compliant Carbon Reduction Plans as part of our delivery process. See how on the methodology page.