How the City of Amsterdam uses the CO₂ Performance Ladder in its procurement

Every year, Amsterdam uses the CO₂ Performance Ladder as an award criterion in hundreds of tenders. In this way, the Ladder contributes to achieving the municipality’s climate ambitions. Ladder-certified organisations not only actively work on CO₂ reduction, but, thanks to the award advantage, also have a better chance of being awarded projects by the municipality. In order to use the Ladder successfully in tenders, procurement officer Gabriël Meijer says it is important that the organisation informs and supports tender teams well. He explains how Amsterdam does this and what advantages green procurement with the Ladder brings.

On an annual basis, the municipality of Amsterdam spends nearly 3 billion euros on its contracts with companies and organisations. That is about a third of the municipality’s budget. With their substantial share of spending, tenders are an important means of making sustainable impact, says Gabriël Meijer, procurement advisor at the Amsterdam municipality. ‘We have the ambition as an organisation to be completely CO₂ neutral by 2030. By purchasing sustainably, we can make great strides towards this. For example, by commissioning projects with as few greenhouse gas emissions as possible and using materials produced from renewable raw materials.’

CO₂ Performance Ladder in procurement

The CO₂ Performance Ladder helps the municipality put flesh ont the bones of sustainable procurement, says Meijer. ‘The CO₂ Performance Ladder is a good tool to check per project whether there are opportunities for sustainable procurement of products, supplies and services. Especially for projects in the physical domain (civil engineering). We apply the Ladder to all multiple, national and European tenders for Works and to European tenders for Services and Supplies within the physical domain. The inclusion of the Ladder as an award criterion in a tender has been mandatory for procurement teams since 1 January 2022. They are only allowed to deviate from it in highly exceptional cases, for example if they consider another sustainability criterion to be specifically important for a particular project.’

Inform and support the organisation

To help teams work with the Ladder in tenders, the municipality has developed special formats, says Meijer. ‘They can include these in an award guideline and in contracts. We also have a document with frequently asked questions, for example on how and when exactly to apply the Ladder. And if a team cannot figure something out, there is a helpdesk to support them. We find that supporting and properly informing the organisation, especially the contract managers and procurement advisers, is extremely important. This creates support for working with the Ladder. In addition, clear frameworks and good information ensure uniformity and clarity towards the market.’

The Ladder as an award criterion

Meijer explains how using the CO₂ Performance Ladder in a tender works. ‘Tendering parties can achieve a notional discount on the tender sum based on the quality they offer. Certification on the Ladder is part of this quality value. Depending on the certification level (1 to 5), a party gets a notional discount of 1, 2, 3, 5 or 8 per cent respectively. Although this is only a relatively small percentage of notional discount, certification can sometimes just make the difference. However, certification is not a requirement, otherwise you create an uneven playing field. Nor do we ask in a tender what measures parties are taking to reduce emissions. This is already done by an auditor during certification. However, parties do have to demonstrate after a year that they meet the level of the Ladder.’

CO2 Performance Ladder	Fictitious discount (%)
No ambition level	0%
(Ambition) level 1	1 %
(Ambition) level 2	2 %
(Ambition) level 3	3 %
(Ambition) level 4	5 %
(Ambition) level 5	8 %

Signal to the market and handle for dialogue

Meijer sees that the increasing number of companies certified at level 5 of the CO₂ Performance Ladder makes it increasingly difficult to stand out. ‘Especially in industries in which many companies are certified at the highest level, such as civil engineering. Nevertheless, we choose to continue using the Ladder as an award criterion. This is partly because it sends a signal that we as a municipality consider sustainability to be very important, but also because it encourages companies to continue working on CO₂ reduction. In addition, including the Ladder in a tender offers tools for discussing concrete sustainability measures in the execution of projects after the contract has been awarded. The great thing about the new version (4.0) of the CO₂ Performance Ladder is that it offers companies more scope to distinguish themselves in terms of ambition levels.’

Tender paving contract

Every year, the municipality uses the CO₂ Performance Ladder in several hundred tenders. One of these was for a paving contract within the entire municipality of Amsterdam. Meijer: ‘In this contract, we divided the municipality into fourteen geographical areas. For each of these areas, we were looking for a performing party, with whom we wanted to conclude a cooperation agreement for several years. This should be seen as a kind of declaration of intent. Within such an agreement, we can then – depending on the maintenance tasks per area – carry out separate projects under the contract. It was a fairly large European tender that attracted many parties. All bidders put in their certification.’

Cooperation agreement H. van Wijk

One of the 14 parties with whom the municipality signed a cooperation agreement is H. van Wijk. With level 5 certification, the company scored maximum points on the Ladder criterion, says owner Lars van Wijk. ‘Level 5 means that we not only want to work emission-free ourselves as a company, but that we also require this of our chain partners and the parties we hire. We also encourage them in this. In the tender, we not only stated our certification level, but also incorporated concrete emission reduction targets. In that area, we have set the bar high for ourselves. Our investment policy has been fully focused on emission-free operations for about five years. We are well on our way to that.’

Completely emission-free projects

That’s definitely necessary, given that, with the city centre of Amsterdam, H. van Wijk has been assigned the most challenging part of the city. Van Wijk: ‘That is the only part of the municipality that will already be a completely emission-free zone by 1 January 2025. That means that while carrying out work, we are not allowed to emit CO₂ in any way, so much of it will have to be electric. We’ll be able to achieve that for transport, but the question is whether we will have other emission-free equipment in time. There is often a long delivery time, and you can’t start up an emission-free project within a week. So planning is going to be crucial. In addition, the availability of sufficient electricity in the city centre will be a challenge.’

By far the most impact comes from materials

Although the use of sustainable equipment, such as tools, hardware and means of transport, plays an important role in an emission-free project, according to Van Wijk, by far the most impact is in the materials. ‘I think about 80 to 90 per cent of the emissions in a project are due to the materials we use, such as concrete, natural stone, bricks and asphalt. Those are all very CO₂-intensive products. In all those sectors, you do see serious steps being taken now, both in production and post-processing. More and more materials can be repurposed or processed for reuse after use.’

Agreements per project

Since the parties signed the cooperation agreement in 2023, H. van Wijk has already carried out more than 10 projects in the city centre. Van Wijk: ‘We did not agree anything beforehand about the number of projects. Project teams from the municipality come to us as soon as they have a project. So, we are a kind of house contractor. Based on the assignment, we look at how we can carry out the project as well and as sustainably as possible and what the costs will be. Besides the costs, we also calculate the emissions of the execution and the use of materials.’

Need to be involved in the design phase

In between projects, the municipality and H. van Wijk also have discussions, including about where further gains can be made. One of the topics that often comes up is the design process, says Van Wijk. ‘We often come up against the fact that the client, in this case the municipality, has already completely determined the design for the work and the materials. Then we can hardly make any adjustments. While we could make good suggestions for materials produced which are produced more cleanly or are more reusable, for example. If we get involved earlier in the process, we arrive at more sustainable solutions and can make more of an impact. Fortunately, we have good conversations about this together; the municipality dares to be vulnerable.’

“The beauty of the CO₂ Performance Ladder is that it has initiated dialogue on this. The value of using the Ladder in a tender is therefore much broader than just the award advantage.”

Ladder triggers dialogue

Meijer acknowledges that better involving parties in the design phase of a project is a key concern. ‘The beauty of the CO₂ Performance Ladder is that it has initiated dialogue on this. The value of using the Ladder in a tender is therefore much broader than just the award advantage. In discussions, we also learn a lot from parties about all the developments in the market, which is very interesting. A lot of steps are being taken towards sustainability, which also helps us enormously. What we ourselves would still like to see is more accurate monitoring of a project’s emissions. The launch of version 4.0 of the CO₂ Performance Ladder is a great opportunity to look further into the monitoring possibilities.’

Pushing the market in a green direction

With the paving contract, the municipality has also given the market a push in the green direction, Van Wijk concludes. ‘A multi-year agreement gives us certainty. It allows us to dare to invest in greener equipment. Without this contract, we would never have purchased 25 electric vans. The cooperation between the implementing parties has also received a boost. This is also encouraged and required under the Ladder. Because each party has its own part of the city, we do not see each other as competitors, but as cooperation partners. Together, we have set up a hub location to which we bring released materials, such as bricks. These can be reused by other parties. Something like this would not have come about if we had been asked by the municipality for a single project.’

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