The Procurement Policy Note usually referred to as PPN 006 applies to suppliers bidding for major UK central government contracts. It replaced the earlier PPN 06/21 terminology. As a rule of thumb, a compliant Carbon Reduction Plan is a prerequisite for bidding on government contracts over £5 million.
Treat that as the shape of the requirement rather than the requirement itself. The threshold that applies to a given procurement, and the version of the policy note in force for it, are set by the buyer and stated in the contract notice. Central government departments, arm's-length bodies and the wider public sector apply it differently, and a growing number of private-sector buyers now ask for the same document with no policy note behind it at all. Read the notice rather than assuming.
It also applies further down than the organisation that signs the contract. If you supply a company that bids for public contracts, the emissions question reaches you through them: their scope 3 is your scope 1 and 2, and they cannot answer it without you. That is the most common route by which a business that never bids for a government contract ends up needing a Carbon Reduction Plan anyway.
NCZ measures the emissions the plan rests on, at four levels from a free Blue Award to Platinum Certification, and verifies the result independently.
Last reviewed: September 2026