Welcome to the latest edition of Surbon Signal covering sustainability in bids, further reading and upcoming events.

1) How to include sustainability in tenders effectively

Sustainability in tenders has gone from the paragraph nobody scored to a criterion that can decide who wins. Here’s what makes it work — and what just makes noise.

When I started out in sustainability, it was politely (and not so politely) dismissed as “green nonsense or “green shit.” Back in 2012 it barely earned a mention in a tender at all — a paragraph at the back if you were lucky on environment, and rarely anything you’d actually score. A lot has changed.

What we actually mean by it

Sustainability in tenders isn’t a bolt-on or a box-tick. At its simplest, it’s embedding environmental, social and economic value into how a contract is specified, scored and delivered. In transport that spans decarbonisation and net zero, social value (UK only), air quality, accessibility, and the local economic benefit a service creates. The key word is embedded built into the requirement, not stapled to the end of it.

The trend so far

The direction of travel has been steady rather than dramatic. Sustainability has grown from an afterthought into a weighted, scored criterion, typically sitting around 10% and increasingly bundled in with the quality score rather than treated as a separate curiosity. That’s a meaningful shift: it now carries enough weight to influence who wins, which means bidders take it seriously and authorities get better answers back.

What works well

Keep it simple to understand. Bids are complex enough. The more straightforward your sustainability requirements are to interpret, the better the responses you’ll get — and the easier they are to evaluate fairly. Clarity beats cleverness every time.

Link it to contract value. Sustainability asks should be proportionate to the size and nature of the contract. A requirement that scales sensibly with value feels fair, gets taken seriously, and avoids either punishing smaller bidders or trivialising larger ones.

Recognise the wider benefits of public transport. Transport isn’t just a service to be decarbonised — it is part of the solution. Mode shift, reduced congestion, cleaner air, social inclusion and access to opportunity are all sustainability outcomes in their own right. Tenders that acknowledge this get richer, more genuine commitments in return.

What doesn’t work

Too many KPIs and no guidance. Handing bidders a long list of metrics with no steer on priorities or how they’ll be assessed produces noise, not value. People either chase the easy targets or drown trying to cover everything. Fewer, clearer, well-explained measures win.

Not linking it to cost. If sustainability commitments sit in a vacuum with no connection to price or deliverability, they become aspirational at best and meaningless at worst. The strongest requirements make the cost — and the value — of sustainability visible, so it’s planned and funded rather than promised and forgotten.

The takeaway

The shift from “green nonsense” to scored criterion is real, but weighting alone doesn’t deliver outcomes. The tenders that get the best out of sustainability are the ones that make it simple, proportionate and properly costed — and that treat public transport as part of the answer, not just another thing to clean up.

2) Further links

🚎 London reaches 3,000 zero-emission buses — Around a third of London's bus fleet now runs emission-free, up from just 30 electric buses in 2016. A useful marker of how fast a large fleet can switch when procurement and policy pull together.

🔋 BYD is losing its spark — The world's biggest EV maker is finding its lead harder to defend as domestic rivals close in and China's EV demand cools. A reminder that even dominant players in the zero-emission shift aren't immune to market pressure — worth a thought if you're betting on a single supplier or technology.

♻️ Emirates recycles 88 tonnes of onboard plastic into new inflight service items — Gulf News (UAE) A tidy circular-economy example from aviation: cabin plastic waste turned back into onboard service items rather than landfill. The kind of closed-loop thinking that's moving from nice-to-have to expected in transport sustainability commitments.

📝 How to integrate sustainability into your transport bids — My practical guide to embedding sustainability into a tender so it actually scores — social value, net zero, and the evidence evaluators look for. The companion piece to this issue.

3) Upcoming events

🚇 7–10 July — AI for Good Global Summit, Geneva

Interesting event on AI and sustainability and impacts on transport

🎓 22–24 September — UITP Sustainability Training, Madrid​

A three-day in-person course run by UITP Academy with its regional training centre EMT Madrid (22–24 September 2026), covering sustainability strategy, reporting and double materiality, climate risk, sustainable finance and procurement for public transport. I’m one of the trainers — so I’m biased — but it’s focused on the business benefits of sustainability, with strong trainers and great case studies from EMT Madrid.

About Surbon Consulting

Surbon Consulting helps public transport operators, authorities and suppliers win contracts and deliver social value, with 18 years of experience and over 40 bids across the UK, Europe and the Middle East. Want to know more? Book a call or explore articles and resources.

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