PPN 006 / PPN 06/21, SECR, SBTI
Carbon Reporting Consultancy.

A PPN 06/21 Carbon Reduction Plan is a requirement for suppliers bidding on UK Government contracts worth over £5 million. It demonstrates your commitment to reaching Net Zero by 2050, and must follow a specific template that includes Scope 1, 2, and select Scope 3 emissions. ESG Pro prepares fully compliant plans with fast turnaround.

SECR (Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting) is a UK regulation requiring large companies to disclose their energy use and carbon emissions in their annual reports. If your business meets two or more of the following: £36M+ turnover, 250+ employees, or £18M+ balance sheet total—you’re likely required to comply.

ESG Pro offers the fastest turnaround in the industry, including emergency services for late SECR filings or urgent government bid deadlines. Many clients receive their full report within days, not weeks.

Yes. Our reporting includes Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions in alignment with the GHG Protocol and SBTi. Scope 3 is often the largest contributor to your carbon footprint, especially in the supply chain, and we treat it as a critical part of our service.

Absolutely. All our PPN 06/21 and SECR reports are aligned with Net Zero, SBTi, and ISO 14068 standards. We even provide Net Zero Roadmaps and Carbon Reduction Plans that are credible and procurement-ready.

Yes. ESG Pro offers a fixed-fee service with no daily rates or hidden costs. You get expert consultancy, software access, carbon offset options, and a professionally designed report—all included.

Yes, we can. Even if we didn’t complete your previous reports, we review and integrate your historical data at no extra charge to make your current report more robust and complete.

It depends on your business activity. SECR is a legal obligation for qualifying UK companies, while PPN 06/21 is required only when bidding on certain government contracts. If you’re unsure, we’ll assess your situation and advise you on what’s required.

Yes. Carbon reporting can be self-funding. ESG Pro uses the reporting process to uncover cost-saving opportunities across procurement, energy, transport, waste, and supplier management. Many clients achieve significant operational savings.

With a 100% compliance success rate, the fastest delivery times, and affordable fixed pricing, ESG Pro is the trusted partner for PPN 06/21 and SECR reporting. We’ve supported businesses of all sizes across multiple sectors since 2016.

Humperdinck Jackman (00:00.94)
Good morning. Nope. Start again.

Humperdinck Jackman (00:06.296)
Hello, I’m Humperdinck Jackman, CEO of ESG Pro, and I’m joined today by Joe Gallagher, our Partnerships Director, and we’re going to be discussing Carbon Reporting or GHG reporting as you might know it. Joe, there’s so many obligations on businesses of every size out there. What are you finding are the real pain points? And let’s explore how every business, regardless of size,

needs to prioritize their sustainability reporting. What are your thoughts?

Joe Gallagher (00:41.628)
Yes, I’m seeing trends where you’ve got the regulated companies, those that, you in the UK would have to submit their emissions reporting into companies’ house. So, and then I’m seeing on the other end of the spectrum, the SMEs that are not regulated to share the data, but if they’ve got clients that are regulated, then it becomes a priority for them. So think there’s challenges in different camps I’m putting.

Humperdinck Jackman (01:09.762)
And Joe, there are so many acronyms. I mean, we’ve got GHG, greenhouse gas reporting. We’ve got SBTI, science-based targets initiative. And the list goes on and it’s bewildering for most people. How do we break down all of these regulations into something which the newcomer to the field, they’ve been tasked to do this. How do we break it down for them?

Where do we begin?

Joe Gallagher (01:42.47)
Well, there are shifts where there, I believe there’s going to be some more global standardization on certain things, but it is a minefield of jargon. And I think the SME is really struggling initially, just the thing about, know, how do we get started? It just feels like a huge challenge. And dare I say it, they don’t have the resource. Often they’re limited with the time.

and they just get scared and that fear leads them to some of them not acting, which is a real shame.

Humperdinck Jackman (02:14.51)
Well, let’s start with the common denominator facing most businesses. The driver which causes those panicky phone calls, even on Boxing Day this year to me. Hey, we’ve put in a tender and we’ve been blocked from progressing it and the deadline is next week. We’ve submitted and now we’ve got to deliver a PPN 0621 or is it?

Joe Gallagher (02:44.56)
Yes, well, if the PPN.

06-21 now, the new version as of February this year, the 006. But essentially, whilst that’s very much focused on public procurement spend and access, I’m seeing a lot more larger companies now embedding similar things within their RFPs and the weighting, you know, the low numbers 5%, the high numbers probably 20 % attributed to sustainability reporting. And that goes beyond carbon, embraces the full ESG spectrum, but

for today we’re talking about the carbon element and to me the biggest thing I think companies, organizations want to see is your commitment to a net zero journey and what they’re looking to see is year-on-year improvement which the PPN006 just frames it as a carbon reduction plan but essentially even if it’s not a PPN006 you can still build a carbon reduction plan and have the confidence

to share that and make it public and you’re encouraged to put it on your website. So it’s actually there visibly for stakeholders to see.

Humperdinck Jackman (03:56.44)
And I think this is a really important point you’ve just brought up about the net zero target. There are businesses out there, consultancies, delivering carbon reports, but they’re not actually framing it in a useful way. Here’s your total carbon emissions, or at least those which are reported, but then they’re not identifying which specific GHG, greenhouse gas protocol, emissions.

categories are included. It’s random wording. And this doesn’t help anybody, but equally it means that these clients have invested in a carbon report, which then doesn’t help them with public procurement or fulfilling the precise requirements of those tenders, let alone certifications such as B Corp or EcoVardis. And there’s a problem there. So…

Once we’ve got this PPN006 carbon reduction plan prepared for a client, what’s the next step which they might be subject to? What if they’re a slightly somewhat bigger company, say over 36 million pounds turnover, what are they facing?

Joe Gallagher (05:16.464)
think from a mandatory point of view, they could really focus on scope one and two and maybe look at things like business travel. But the Procurement Act demands five categories of the 15 in scope three. And the big focus area at the moment, any company organization who is looking to be net zero needs to get into

the purchase goods and services. We know from the work that we’ve done, it could be 40 or 50 percent, if not higher, of the scope three. And it’s also the hardest category to have a direct influence over because you need to encourage and work with your suppliers to make improvements, you know, with their product and the impact of the product and service on you as a company.

So I’m definitely seeing a shift for larger companies looking to engage with their suppliers, collaborate, raise awareness and really try and influence them to do things differently, which reduces the emissions impact on them.

Humperdinck Jackman (06:23.799)
very important to complete a supply chain ESG sustainability audit on your supply chain, again, for compliance with all of the major ESG frameworks. Like I said, you’ve got the GRI, B Corp, EcoVardis. These are now fundamental requirements of these frameworks to have good reporting. So,

The larger businesses though, they’re faced with SECR or sometimes referred to as SACA. That’s a new abbreviation, a new way of saying it. There’s a big disparity between what the larger organizations are required to report on to comply with their annual, when filing the annual report and the PPN, which applies to any business, no matter how small in the public.

procurement supply chain. What can you explain about the SECR reporting and what works, what doesn’t, and what are the risks?

Joe Gallagher (07:29.924)
I think to be quite frank, I think it’s incredibly basic and I see a lot of organizations that will do it themselves and just convert and there is that they may make a mistake and only convert one of the emissions factors, but they can sort of get by doing the mandatory stuff. I’m not going to say that it’s just ticking a box, but it might feel like that. But these companies are responsible for a lot of the impact.

So they need to effectively set the momentum and drive the change and influence some of those non-regulated suppliers that maybe depend on that relationship. So I think there’s a lot of responsibility. think PPN 006 is actually more demanding. So for an SME to complete the PPN 006, I think it’s more demanding than potentially a large organization to do a very basic SECR declaration.

Humperdinck Jackman (08:27.997)
But the tide is turning. I’ve been seeing this a lot recently. Clients have come to ESG Pro and you’ve helped more than a few of them. Where their auditors have turned around and rejected the box ticking minimum, do the bare minimum, report on scope one, scope two and business travel. And their auditors…

are rejecting the report because it introduces liability on the auditors. It’s not transparent, it’s not full disclosure. this risk mitigation aspect is very important. So those businesses, you’ve already touched on scope three category one reporting, which is your purchase goods and services. What are the other?

types of emissions which any business really should be reporting on if they’re going to be taken seriously and if they’re genuinely going to work towards mitigating their impact on the environment.

Joe Gallagher (09:40.989)
I think one that I think personally I think it should be mandated is waste. I think it’s a very emotive topic, has a big impact and waste currently is voluntary and I feel that should be mandatory. think employee commuting, whilst it has its challenges, is again trying to potentially come up with ideas and initiatives as a company.

to encourage cycling to work, walking, public transport, but just raise awareness. And if you’re doing that with your employees, then hopefully they’ll translate into actions they take at home and with their families and their friends, not just around commuting, but the subject of sustainability. And of course, people that are moving products in and out to consumers, they really should be addressing upstream and downstream transportation logistics.

warehousing and areas like that.

Humperdinck Jackman (10:40.193)
Yeah, and when I recently was working with a very, very large charity, global charity on this, a lot of what we did with this plan was work on the internal culture. And there’s much misunderstood, very seemingly trivial initiatives. I mean, it’s analogous to the…

the ban on plastic straws in the UK and other countries. It’s not that plastic straws themselves represent some colossal tonnage of plastic and waste, or even the energy which goes into manufacturing them. It’s instilling into everybody’s minds that small changes make a difference. And if everybody in the organization understands on a very personal level how

carbon is important, then they’re much more inclined on a business level, organizational level, to participate and come up with ideas and identify initiatives, wasted energy consumption and so on, which drive down the big picture. What do you think?

Joe Gallagher (11:59.069)
Absolutely. I think sometimes right or wrong, organizations can do the carbon accounting without directly involving their employees. Whereas with ESG, as we know, it’s far more immersive. It needs to be broader, deeper, wider. So I think with carbon very much and GHG emissions very much, there’s an opportunity, I think, to drive change and behavior through

through people and if we look at you know I know sometimes people talk about you know the cost of a kilowatt.

As an example, you know the cost of living crisis well It’s it’s it’s not rocket science some of these things if you switch the lights off completely You know and you don’t use kilowatts. There’s there’s an impact on savings so there can be some initiatives which help people at home as well and You know the new EPC regulations for for buildings, you you know renting out properties

so people can drive those changes to actually impact themselves personally as well as the company they’re working for.

Humperdinck Jackman (13:06.165)
Interesting points. Now one of the things which comes out of that part of our discussion is the differentiation for larger businesses, large undertakings. There’s this regulation ESOS, the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme. So let’s help everybody understand the difference between ESOS and what it’s trying to achieve and carbon reporting under say SECR.

Would you like to go there?

Joe Gallagher (13:35.609)
I think we’re not, suppose, is carbon a currency? I suppose in this example, let’s assume it is a currency. ESOS is using kilowatts as its currency for reporting and GHG emissions are using carbon. So, know, companies doing their SCCR would need to convert their kilowatt uses into carbon emissions to help them with that reporting.

that’s essentially, in my opinion, the key difference.

Humperdinck Jackman (14:08.493)
And fundamentally, they’re both about saving the organization money, ESOS very much. If the organization uses less energy, it saves money. It’s an incentive, a methodology to identify your energy hotspots and your opportunities to reduce. But with carbon reporting, I always put it as…

Everything which you put out, everything you consume in the business, everything you send to waste, landfill, is money. And it’s also carbon. So carbon reporting is also about reducing your waste because that’s carbon. And if you purchased a product in the first place, everything you send to landfill is not just carbon going out of the door, it’s money. So…

It becomes, there is the opportunity for businesses of every size to make their carbon reporting journey self-funding.

Joe Gallagher (15:16.74)
Absolutely, and I think the point we haven’t talked about is that impact on things like air quality. So, you know, if you can combine with reduction in carbon emissions, with reduction in cost, with reduction in, you know, air pollution, which improves the air quality, and I think certainly in those heavy urbanized areas.

There’s a lot of focus now on initiatives to drive that down. I know in London, I a statement from the mayor which talked about 4,000 premature deaths every year linked with poor air quality. So that has a direct impact on everybody that lives within London. So it’s often overlooked, but certainly that’s…

Humperdinck Jackman (16:02.957)
And in the paper this morning, in the Telegraph, the journalist highlighted how the air quality in Paris has improved fourfold in 20 years, which is incredible. So let’s dig a bit deeper here. I what’s the process when we start really digging the…

Joe Gallagher (16:18.864)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Humperdinck Jackman (16:31.831)
We face the elephant in the room, is purchased goods and services. Most businesses, they first start this process, they think it’s all about their electricity and fleet fuel purchased. But every business buying goods and services is buying carbon. It’s part of. So if we can drive that down, then we’re really onto something.

90 statistics vary 92 to 96 % of any businesses carbon footprint is derived from those areas, those emissions categories outside of their direct control. This all of this so so called scope three. And the overwhelming majority of that is impetuous goods and services. So

As we start working through the client’s purchase goods and services, we’re not just identifying how much carbon they’re buying, we’re also identifying spend hotspots where they’re using the wrong or the inefficient supplier, not necessarily the best price. They’re just buying from here and from there. It’s out of control, which opens the door to really make some profound savings.

Joe Gallagher (18:01.392)
Yeah, absolutely. I know sometimes the larger companies, they struggle with engaging the supply chain is sometimes as basic as the database and the information they have to communicate with them. you know, having that at the beginning. And then I think when you’re looking at carbon emissions, it would make sense to do that under the under the sort of overall strategy of ESG risk assessments.

and then embody within the risk assessments and questions that talk about, you know, what are you doing around your carbon emissions? Have you got a reduction plan? Do you report or record it? And really, suppose then, you know, initially with the Scope 3 purchase goods and services, as we know, the team initially worked with spend-based data, which is at the moment the science that many use. But over time and the quicker the better, it will move to actual data.

as opposed to spend-based. And I would hope to think that the emissions reporting or the amount will come down once you use actual versus spend-based. And then really what I’m also then seeing is companies wanting their SME suppliers to make climate pledges on the reduction year on year. And that’s sometimes linked with if they’ve got a

a shareholder declaration to say, science-based targets, we’re going to take 30 % out of scope three in the next five years. You can’t wait to 2029 and then announce that you’ve missed it because you’ve not been checking in with your suppliers over the year on year. So that again is another challenge, but I’m definitely seeing a trend to companies wanting to do that.

Humperdinck Jackman (19:45.608)
Absolutely. And something we’re working with our clients on is actually helping them engage with their suppliers. Because you’ve got to bring the suppliers on board and a lot of times suppliers, you you don’t have, well, you might have direct and somewhat personal contact with several of them. But overall, everybody’s being feeling a bit bombarded with RFQs and

assessment this and assessment that. So what we’re finding is the helping our clients conduct webinars for their suppliers to bring them on board, explain the journey and get them engaged. Your suppliers are absolutely your weak link and this process of

us actually helping organize or hosting these webinars is really creating some great motivation and participation. What else could suppliers be doing?

Joe Gallagher (21:00.252)
Well, I think under the spirit of collaboration, I’ve never known a subject in my working career where it brings together customers, suppliers, partners, competitors. I’ve never known a subject and everybody really wants to learn from each other. So I think there’s a really huge opportunity. And I think, suppose, in my mind, sometimes I talk about eliminating the benefit of hindsight.

Why wait 18 months and then find out you’ve gone down the wrong? Because we haven’t got the 18 months or the two years. We need positive action as soon as possible. But I think for SMEs, there’s never been as good an opportunity to access things like the procurement frameworks. know, 400 billion spend a year with a KPI from the government talking about 30 % award to the SMEs.

So there’s never ever been a better time to stand up, lift what you’re doing and access that sort of huge potential part of expenditure.

Humperdinck Jackman (22:08.077)
That’s a very good point. The other thing I think we need to really face up to for anybody watching this video is the big debate over net zero. It has become a very strong political baton right now, either for it or against it. You’re a for business or you’re against business. And I think what we’re really trying to deliver here

is the message that set aside the politics of Net Zero, the climate is changing, that’s a fact, is the UK strategy the best? I’m not going to make a comment on that. But what I do believe is that these very points you’ve been raising about giving SMEs absolute access to public procurement.

And, you know, take the example that by the NHS’s own reckoning, there are somewhere in the order of 80,000 direct suppliers in the UK. Now, the overwhelming majority of those are small businesses. And the NHS demands that those small businesses are assessing their supply chain. So assume 20 SMEs.

per supplier. Very quickly are into millions of UK businesses subject to these regulations. And it’s absolutely fundamental. If you want to supply the NHS, you have to have a carbon reduction plan, PPN 006. And this really is coming together for businesses. And just touch back on that whole tender situation. Such a small business.

I dealt with personally, they make wigs both for the public and for the NHS. It’s about 50-50, their revenue. They’ve been a supplier to the NHS for over 10 years. Suddenly, they couldn’t submit their tender because there was an absolute block until they complied with NHS Evergreen, the first depilation of which is carbon reporting.

Humperdinck Jackman (24:38.603)
Yeah, and map that back, excuse me, map that back to the procurement act. And there’s opportunities galore for everybody. It’s not about the politics, it’s about the impact and it’s bottom line impact on the business who gets their own house in order, but also has reputation. What about, you know.

the importance of every business to be able to shout to consumers and business suppliers that they are taking the environment seriously. Any thoughts there, Joe?

Joe Gallagher (25:23.194)
think the percentage of eco-conscious decision makers and consumers is changing. And so I think I can see in certain retail examples, hospitality examples, where people make decisions about where they go to eat, where they shop, what they buy based on

various sort of eco labeling or you know how the restaurant is sourcing its food and that’s only growing so I think if you don’t really tune into that you’re narrowing your market over time so you know whereas some of might have said Joe that was a niche five years ago

Well, actually, that niche is really growing now, so it’s becoming quite a large percentage. So I just don’t think you can overlook it. You talked earlier about Net Zero and this sort of fear from which I do see fear from SMEs about making a statement. I always say, well, if you’re making a statement to Net Zero, it should be a lot easier for you to achieve it than it would be for a much larger organization, a city and or the UK as a

as an entity. I think the way that certainly I try and help is, you make sure they’re really clear about what they’re saying. So if they’re saying we’re going to be net zero by 2030, and that’s their operational impact, that really they share that that is really focusing on just operations and scope one and scope two. But the full scopes are going to be maybe 2040, 2050 more long range. Because I see some SMEs making the states where they’re overstating.

Humperdinck Jackman (26:39.373)
Mm.

Joe Gallagher (27:07.408)
what they’re saying and that as we know is greenwashing which would switch somebody off straight away. And then I think the work we do even for the larger companies, I often get met with a little bit of resistance on scope three reporting because they’re worried about showing their emissions have actually gone up which they could go up by sort of nine times the figure once you get into scope three. So again, what we try and do is make sure

that we measure the intensity metrics for scope one and scope two, and that’s a separate measure. And then we do the full intensity metric based on all scopes, which means if they’re communicating outside or they’re being compared to from a benchmarking point of view, they’ve got two areas of benchmarking. But I think, sorry.

Humperdinck Jackman (27:53.26)
you’re comparing, you’re comparing it, you’re then able to help every business compare apples with apples.

Joe Gallagher (28:01.82)
Absolutely. I think that is a, I mean, I see that as quite a simple method, but it’s actually eliminates what is, think, quite a big fear for large companies because they know that elephant in the room is scope free, not just from a, you know, a data collecting it, managing it, who’s going to do that, the time that’s needed, the cost if they’re working with an external party. But it’s just this perception that it’s going to look really, really bad. We’re actually

I think it’s the complete opposite because it shows that you are really attacking the big challenge and you’ll get a lot of respect from that, from many organizations. And I think for the SMEs, again, it should be quite easy. And as we know, we normally focus on 50 to 75 % of where we see the impact. There’s no huge gain in focusing on a low spend in a low impact area, but it’s…

it’s focusing on those large, large impact areas.

Humperdinck Jackman (29:05.389)
Okay, so, you know, just a thought from me on what you’ve been covering there is study after study for the last 15 years has shown that consumers will spend anywhere from a four to a 9 % premium for products and services deemed sustainable. And you only have to go onto booking.com or any…

major travel platform these days to see the impact. Every hotel leading the charge to say, look, this is our carbon footprint. This is our social perspective. This is how we are managing our own business. And that’s incidentally, it’s the hotel industry where the whole concept of greenwashing was conceived. Now, I think it’s in

time to probably start wrapping up. my closing thoughts on this whole topic of carbon reporting, come down to brand messaging, no matter what your business, whether you’re going for B Corp certification, EcoVitis certification, which is more for business to business. But how, what do you actually have to shout about on social media and in other forms of advertising in, you know,

What is your corporate presence out there? And nothing speaks louder to the current population than sustainability. So carbon reporting to my mind is absolutely the starting point. It’s where anybody who professes to care at all for the environment should begin. And you can make it, you can make a positive impact. It’s not for you each.

business, no individual business is going to solve the climate issues out there. But collectively, cleaner, lower waste, these make a difference. And this is where I think every business does need to get on board, do it right, get some proper advice and be guided by experts, not with some piece of software trying to

Humperdinck Jackman (31:31.735)
struggle through all of these concepts on their own.

Joe Gallagher (31:36.509)
Yeah, and I think…

I there’s an opportunity potentially for the companies to redefine themselves with new purpose and values and that new DNA could be wrapped around the subject of ESG which as we know embraces carbon reporting. I know you mentioned earlier on around the sort of the accountancy firms rejecting, the auditors rejecting declarations and I think as the non-financial information grows within companies’ reports that environmental we have

talked about the other major challenge at the moment which is the climate risk modeling which which I’m expecting the new ISSB to potentially replace the TCFD but it’s going to put pressure on those large companies to not only do the climate risk modeling but actually position it in the from a financial impact on their on their business a huge challenge.

But I think then if you’re paying for the annual auditor, if you can work with an organization, hopefully like ourselves, who can help prepare the data so it’s audit ready, that should reduce the amount of audit fees you pay because it’s presented in such a strong and compelling manner. So I think there’s benefits all around, but I think for sometimes people just need, you know, what is their key driver?

what is their reason to act. I talk to some people and it can be, listen Joe, I’ve just got two new grandchildren and I want to protect the planet for their benefit when I’ve left. So sometimes it can be as human, a human link like that. Other times it’s regulation, sometimes it can be tenders and bids, key customers. But ultimately I think it may be a multiple of different drivers that can bring everybody together.

Humperdinck Jackman (33:29.303)
That’s brilliant. So bottom line is carbon reporting helps your business, helps your family, helps society, helps the planet and it’s got to be done. Thank you very much for listening everybody. We welcome your questions. Come onto our website, use the contact form, book a meeting.

Joe Gallagher (33:47.388)
Thank you.

Humperdinck Jackman (33:59.533)
Call us, email us, particularly if you want to email Joe Gallagher, it’s jg at esgpro.co.uk. Everybody, thanks for listening and check out our website. We’re going to be producing a lot more videos like this, going deeper into all of these subjects and a lot more. Thank you.

SECR stands for Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting, a UK regulation requiring large companies to report their energy use and carbon emissions annually.

Procurement Policy Note 06/21 is UK government guidance that requires suppliers bidding for public contracts over £5M to submit a Carbon Reduction Plan aligned to Net Zero targets.

• Scope 1: Direct emissions from owned or controlled sources (e.g., company vehicles).
• Scope 2: Indirect emissions from purchased electricity, heat, or steam.
• Scope 3: All other indirect emissions in a company’s value chain (e.g., business travel, suppliers).

A formal strategy outlining how your business will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, usually aligned with GHG Protocol and Net Zero objectives.

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol is the world’s most widely used standard for calculating and reporting carbon emissions.