Experience required to manage and run a procurement in most cases will be provided by your organisation’s procurement team. However, there are likely to be a number of activities you will need to support the procurement team with. This includes writing a tender specification and evaluating the tenders. Both of these activities are likely to need technical expertise on decarbonisation technologies and solutions so your team can ensure that what potential installers are proposing are sound and deliverable options and the benefits being set out are credible.

The following are areas you will also need to ensure are adequately supported by your team:

• Identifying what resources are needed to support the procurement
• Developing the procurement strategy
• Writing a high-quality tender and the evaluation of bids
• The ongoing activities of contract/supplier management
• Implementation and monitoring of the project as it is delivered
• Compliance and benefits tracking after project completion.

These skills could come from your strategy team, or teams who are already involved in delivering construction or maintenance projects across your estate. You will also want to consider the other stakeholders that will be involved directly or indirectly in procurement activities, for example the legal team and the governance structures that will ultimately sign off the spend.

Useful skills in this area are likely to include the following and may be found within your strategy team:

• Identifying stakeholder expectations and working out how to meet them
• Gaining their buy-in throughout all stages of the process
• Ensuring that they support the contract after it has been implemented.

You may also wish to consider if it is worth upskilling your procurement team, governance structures, and legal team on the basics of decarbonisation to make them feel more comfortable with the material they are dealing with on your project.