You open the tender documents for a Scottish public sector opportunity and find SPD Question 4C.7 asking for a Bidder Climate Change Plan. Does this require a detailed carbon reduction strategy? Do you need to calculate all of your emissions? And could an inadequate response affect whether the rest of your tender is even evaluated?
These are increasingly important questions for suppliers. Climate considerations are embedded within Scottish public procurement, but the requirements are intended to be proportionate to the contract. Understanding exactly what Question 4C.7 asks for can help you meet the requirement without making your response more complicated than it needs to be.
What Is SPD Question 4C.7?
The Single Procurement Document, or SPD, is used during the selection stage of many Scottish public sector procurement exercises. It allows buyers to assess whether bidders meet requirements relating to areas such as financial standing, technical ability and professional capability.
Question 4C.7 sits within the technical and professional ability section and can be used to address environmental management. Where climate considerations are relevant and proportionate, buyers can require bidders to provide a Bidder Climate Change Plan.
This means the plan can form part of the selection process for Scottish public sector contracts, rather than being another conventional quality question that you answer later in your tender.
In June 2026, Scottish Procurement refreshed its guidance on SPD Question 4C.7 and Bidder Climate Change Plans. The update emphasised that climate plans should only be requested where they are relevant and proportionate, while also providing clearer guidance on how they should be assessed.
For bidders, the result should be a more consistent approach and clearer expectations about the information they need to provide.
When Will You Need a Bidder Climate Change Plan?
Not every Scottish tender requires the same level of climate information.
Current guidance divides contracts into two broad categories for these purposes: relevant contracts and priority contracts.
A relevant contract is one with a clear climate impact where the buyer has identified an opportunity to address climate considerations through the procurement.
A priority contract is a contract worth £4 million or more and/or one involving commodities that the contracting organisation has identified as climate priorities. Buyers can still use the lighter relevant-contract approach for some higher-value procurements where doing so helps reduce barriers to participation, including exercises where smaller businesses are expected to bid.
The requirements broadly differ as follows:
| Requirement | Relevant contract | Priority contract |
| Identify Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions sources | Yes | Yes |
| Calculate Scope 1 emissions | Not normally required | Yes |
| Calculate Scope 2 emissions | Not normally required | Yes |
| Set out emissions reduction actions | Yes | Yes |
| Provide a planned reduction timeline | Not required by the standard template | Yes |
You should therefore start by checking which template the buyer has issued rather than assuming every climate change plan requires the same level of carbon accounting.
The tender documents should make the requirement clear. If anything is ambiguous, raise a clarification early enough for the buyer to respond before the submission deadline.
What Does a Bidder Climate Change Plan Need to Cover?
A climate change plan should demonstrate that your organisation understands where its emissions arise and is taking credible steps to reduce them.
The precise detail depends on whether you are completing the relevant or priority contract template, but there are several areas suppliers should prepare in advance.
1. Understand your emissions sources
Both templates ask you to consider Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions.
The Scottish Government’s Supplier Journey climate guidance describes these as:
- Scope 1: direct emissions from sources that your organisation owns or controls, such as company vehicles or fuel burned within your facilities.
- Scope 2: indirect emissions from purchased energy, including electricity, heating and cooling.
- Scope 3: other indirect emissions across your value chain, which could include purchased goods and services, waste, business travel and employee commuting.
For a relevant contract, identifying these sources is normally enough. You are not being asked to calculate a full organisational carbon footprint.
For a priority contract, however, the standard template also asks for calculated Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions.
2. Explain what you are doing about them
Simply listing emissions sources does not demonstrate action.
Your plan should identify the measures your organisation is already taking or intends to take to reduce its emissions. Depending on your business and the contract, these could include:
- improving energy efficiency within premises
- moving towards lower-emission vehicles
- reducing unnecessary business travel
- using renewable energy
- reducing packaging and material consumption
- increasing reuse and recycling
- working with suppliers to reduce supply-chain emissions
- changing delivery models to reduce transport requirements.
The strongest actions will be relevant to your organisation rather than copied from a generic environmental policy.
There may also be overlap with your approach to the circular economy. Measures that keep materials in use for longer, minimise waste or reduce reliance on new resources can support wider emissions reduction objectives as well as answering contract-specific sustainability requirements.
3. Put ownership and timescales behind your commitments
Statements such as “we are committed to reducing carbon emissions” tell the evaluator very little by themselves.
A more credible plan establishes what will happen and how the business will ensure it happens.
For example, if you intend to reduce emissions associated with company vehicles, you might identify:
- Action: Replace eligible vehicles with electric or lower-emission alternatives as leases expire.
- Owner: Operations Director.
- Timescale: Review the fleet annually, with defined replacement milestones over the next three years.
- Monitoring: Track vehicle type, mileage and associated fuel or energy consumption.
This level of specificity turns an aspiration into a manageable commitment.
For priority contracts, you will also be asked to provide a timeline for planned emissions reduction. Even where the lighter template applies, having internal milestones makes it easier to demonstrate that your climate activity is genuine and progressing.
How Is SPD Question 4C.7 Assessed?
This is where suppliers need to distinguish Question 4C.7 from a typical scored tender response. Under the refreshed guidance, Bidder Climate Change Plans used through SPD Question 4C.7 are assessed on a pass/fail basis only. They should not be turned into a scored evaluation criterion.
The standardised guidance states that a pass requires the production and submission of the appropriate Bidder Climate Change Plan, reviewed and signed off by someone within the business who has authority to make the commitments contained within it. Failure to provide such a plan results in a fail.
In practical terms, you are not trying to write the most elaborate climate strategy in the competition. You need to provide the required information in the appropriate format and demonstrate that the commitments have organisational backing.
That does not mean climate performance cannot affect your tender score elsewhere. A buyer may include separate, contract-specific sustainability requirements within the specification or award criteria. Those questions could ask how you will reduce emissions while delivering the particular contract and may be evaluated competitively.
Think of the distinction this way:
- SPD 4C.7 asks whether you satisfy the climate-related selection requirement.
- A scored sustainability question may ask how well your proposed approach meets the buyer’s contract-specific objectives.
Treating the two as interchangeable can lead to either an unnecessarily complicated climate plan or an overly generic answer to a scored sustainability question.
Seven Common Mistakes to Avoid
Even though the assessment is pass/fail, that does not mean the plan should be treated as an afterthought.
- Submitting an environmental policy instead of the requested plan
A general policy may contain useful information, but if the tender asks you to complete the supplied template, follow that instruction.
- Completing the wrong template
Check whether the procurement uses the relevant or priority contract version before gathering your information.
- Assuming every plan needs a full carbon footprint
Relevant-contract plans require identification of Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions sources, but the standard template does not ask you to calculate those emissions.
- Listing aspirations without actions
Show what your organisation is actually doing, not simply what it believes.
- Ignoring Scope 3
Scope 3 can be harder to understand because it extends beyond emissions under your direct control. However, both standard templates ask bidders to identify Scope 3 sources.
- Copying an example plan
The Supplier Journey provides completed examples to help bidders understand the templates, but specifically warns that they should not be used as bid responses. Your information should reflect your own organisation and the procurement you are entering.
- Forgetting appropriate sign-off
Make sure the plan has been reviewed by someone with sufficient authority to make commitments on behalf of the organisation.
Can You Reuse a Climate Change Plan Across Different Bids?
Potentially, yes. The guidance allows information previously supplied through an SPD to be reused where it remains correct. Because the standard Bidder Climate Change Plan focuses largely on organisation-wide activity, much of your underlying evidence is likely to remain relevant across multiple opportunities.
That makes maintaining a central climate evidence resource worthwhile. It could contain your:
- Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions sources
- latest Scope 1 and 2 calculations, where available
- environmental objectives
- emissions reduction initiatives
- action owners
- delivery milestones
- monitoring information
- evidence of improvements already achieved.
However, reuse should never mean submitting old information without checking it. Review the buyer’s template, instructions and contract classification each time. Update figures where necessary, check that commitments are still accurate and make sure the correct person signs off the final plan.
Prepare Before Question 4C.7 Appears
The easiest time to address climate evidence is before a live bid places you under deadline pressure. If Scottish public sector opportunities are part of your pipeline, consider working through the following questions now:
- Can you identify your main Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions sources?
- Do you have up-to-date Scope 1 and Scope 2 calculations if a priority-contract plan requires them?
- What emissions reduction actions are already underway?
- Who owns those actions internally?
- What timescales or milestones apply?
- How will you monitor whether the actions are working?
- What evidence can you retain to demonstrate progress?
- Who within the organisation can approve and sign the plan?
This preparation can also strengthen other areas of your bidding. Sustainability requirements increasingly appear within specifications, quality questions and wider social or environmental commitments, so a well-maintained evidence base can save time beyond SPD Question 4C.7.
At AM Bid, we regularly help suppliers turn existing policies, operational information and subject-matter expertise into clear tender evidence. Getting that information organised before a deadline gives you more time to concentrate on the areas of the tender that determine your competitive score.
Need Support with a Scottish Public Sector Tender?
Bidder Climate Change Plans are designed to be proportionate, but they still need to be completed correctly. More importantly, they sit within a wider tender in which compliance, evidence and clear responses all matter.
If you are preparing for an opportunity and need bid writing support in Scotland, we can help with individual responses, bid reviews or the management of the full tender process.
Speak to AM Bid about your next Scottish public sector tender and find out how we can help you submit a clear, compliant and competitive bid.