Omdia reported last November that 87% of IT partners see sustainability criteria in customer tenders. In the published notices for UK public sector IT hardware, the figure is 13%.
The two figures count different things. Omdia asked about every customer, and public buyers often put the detail in the tender documents. Even so, the notice shows what a buyer cares about most. In the UK public sector, that is mostly services that a vendor’s partners deliver, and those partners have to find the evidence. That is about to change, because the next set of requirements asks for evidence only manufacturers can provide.
Those are the findings of The Channel Institute’s census of UK public sector IT tenders. We read every UK public sector IT hardware tender notice published on Find a Tender between 24 February 2025, when the Procurement Act came into force, and 30 September 2026. After screening, 326 procurements remained, from schools, councils, NHS trusts and other public buyers. The main census uses 286 of them.
One tender in eight
Thirty-seven of the 286 tenders in the main census ask about the environment at all. It carries little weight. Eight publish an environmental weighting, with a median of about 6% of the score. Price has a median weight of 45% across the 113 tenders that state one.
Buyers ask for services
None of the notices asks for a sustainability standard or rating, such as SBTi, EcoVadis, ISO 14001, EPEAT or TCO Certified. The full tender documents might, but we only read the notices. When buyers sum up what they want in the notice, they ask for services instead.
What buyers ask for Requirements Who gathers the evidence Takeback, disposal and data erasure services 23 Partner, usually with a disposal firm A general statement of how the contract will cut its impact 17 Partner Warranty, spare parts and repair terms 12 Mostly the manufacturer Refurbished or remanufactured devices 10 Partner and manufacturer jointly A weighted “Sustainability” criterion with no description 9 Not visible from the notice Packaging, energy standards, KPI reporting, product carbon 6 Mixed
Source: Channel Institute; 77 requirements in 54 of the 326 procurements.
The top four types account for 62 of the 77 requirements.
A vendor’s partners do the work
The bidding partner gathers the evidence for 57 of the 77 requirements: alone for 22, with a specialist subcontractor such as an IT asset disposal firm for 14, and jointly with the manufacturer for 21. The manufacturer alone holds the evidence for 10, all of them specifications a data sheet already answers.
Few buyers ask for refurbished equipment. Eleven procurements mention it, two of them to rule it out, and only two make it a required lot.
Some vendors already pay for takeback
Takeback is the most common requirement in the census, and some vendors now pay partners for it. Dell introduced a 7% partner rebate on its Asset Recovery Services in its 2023 partner programme. At its Circle Summit in June 2026, Lenovo announced partner rebates on Asset Recovery Services, with rebates on Certified Refurbished sales to follow in selected EMEA markets. Cisco has done the opposite, closing its Takeback Incentive in January 2026.
A partner that answers the disposal question with the vendor’s own service earns a rebate, and the collection records and erasure certificates can go straight into the bid. Few partners seem to know about them.
For a vendor weighing whether to pay partners on takeback and refurbished sales, the Circular Channel Incentive Guide lists the incentives vendors offer today and shows how a bid that mixes new and refurbished equipment compares on price and carbon.
What changes next
Two changes are coming. The NHS Net Zero Supplier Roadmap moves to fuller emissions reporting, including Scope 3, from April 2027, and plans requirements for the carbon footprint of individual products supplied to the NHS from April 2028. The Government Commercial Agency expects to publish the tender for TePAS 3, its technology products framework estimated at £9.6bn, around January 2027.
A product footprint is something only a manufacturer can produce, and just two tenders in the census asked for product carbon or lifecycle data. As more buyers ask for it, a vendor’s partners can only answer with the data the vendor gives them.
Before April 2028
A vendor should get its evidence ready now, grouped by the questions buyers ask: asset recovery terms and certificates, refurbished ranges with warranty terms, repair and spare parts commitments, and product footprints in a form a bid manager can paste in. A vendor should then advise its partners where to find each piece, and build that into its channel partner training, so they are not chasing the vendor for it in the week a tender closes.
A vendor’s partners are already answering these questions on its behalf. From 2028 they will need the vendor’s numbers to do it.
This article was produced in association with the Channel Institute and is classified as partner content. What is partner content? See more here.
Michael Kelly
Michael Kelly is the founder of the Channel Institute, the global gold standard in training and certification for the channel business profession
