Green up now to stay competitive

Businesses have a lot to gain from winning government and public contracts, but the Procurement Act 2023 has introduced strict new social and environmental hoops that contractors must jump through to be considered. Joe Collison, managing director of CES, looks at how businesses can make sure they are ready to claim a share of the pie

Making sure your business is as environmentally sustainable as possible has numerous benefits, but the new Procurement Act, which came into force in February this year, makes it vital for those wishing to bid for public contracts to clean up their act.

Contracting authorities like government departments and public bodies are obliged to consider a whole range of variables before contracts are awarded.

The act also redefines “value for money” to include sustainability – offering the lowest price will no longer win the work if the business cannot demonstrate good environmental, economic, social and ethical practices.

At CES, we can help businesses make the small and large changes that will demonstrate your commitment to renewable sustainable energy and reduced pollution and waste.

As well as opening up opportunities to bid for public contracts, making these changes has the knock-on benefit of cutting costs and increasing a firm’s social capital in the eyes of customers and employees.

Before bidding for a public contract, businesses need to:

• Develop robust sustainability policies which are properly documented and implemented
• Make sure everything the company does complies with the relevant environmental legislation
• Take steps to reduce environmentally-damaging aspects of the business, such as waste and carbon footprint, and make sure the improvements are documented and provable
• Document and prove all social value contributions, such as fair pay, fair and local recruitment policies and contributions to the local economy, and include all those environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics into bids

The Procurement Act represents a big mindset change for both contractors and procurers alike, as base price is no longer the biggest priority.

Our mission at CES is to support the future of the planet while helping our customers make changes that increase energy efficiency, utilise more green energy, and reduce carbon footprint and costs.

If you know that you need to make some changes, big or small, but don’t know where to start, we can help. And I know it can seem daunting at first, it is a lot to think about while you’re also trying to keep your business running profitably.

But by looking at your business from the outside in, identifying what needs to be done and working out what can practically and financially be done and when, it becomes a lot more manageable.

The good thing is that you will be able to see benefits immediately, even if the bigger picture – the global need to work towards sustainable energy production and slowing down the impact of climate change – all seems a bit pie in the sky from the perspective of your desk.

For example, a solar energy system will instantly cut your energy bills. Add an EV charger to run off the energy you create, and the fuel bill for your vehicle fleet instantly becomes much lower too.

Whether it’s heating for your buildings, energy to power your manufacturing processes or putting in energy management software to ensure the lights are turned off when you’re not there, we can advise on every step of the process, as well as helping you to audit and record the data to support your bid for public and government contracts.

Businesses that have taken these steps towards a more ethical and sustainable way of doing things have also reported increased employee engagement, with the boost in productivity and morale which that brings.

For any businesses, but especially those which want to work with the public sector, changing to a more sustainable way of doing things is a must. For a chat about how CES can help you get started email info@poweredbyCES.co.uk