In this video, sustainability consultant Will Richardson explains a growing trend in UK procurement where large buyers are scoring suppliers on environmental performance, not just price or quality. He argues that many small businesses lose contracts because they cannot credibly answer sustainability questions in tenders, a factor many owners are unaware of. Richardson outlines why this shift matters—regulators, investors, and customers are pressuring big buyers to demand sustainable practices from their supply chains. He presents two paths for small businesses: continue guessing and risk losing work, or proactively develop reliable emissions data and use it as a competitive advantage. Richardson describes his firm’s low‑cost, fast‑track service that provides a defensible emissions figure, identifies the 2‑3 highest‑impact actions for each business, and supplies exact tender wording to improve scores. He cites successful work across food & beverage, marketing, professional services, and manufacturing, emphasizing that basic sustainability practices can differentiate firms when competitors lag. The video ends with a call to action for owners to contact him for a short, no‑obligation conversation to assess whether the solution fits their business.
Chapters
If you run a small business and you lost a contract or a tender in the last 12 months without ever being told exactly why, this video is for you. Because I can almost guarantee I know one of the reasons, and you might not even know it exists. Hi, I'm Will Richardson. I've spent 25 years in sustainability consulting. I've worked with everyone from the biggest listed companies to family-run businesses, and right now I'm watching a pattern play out that most small business owners have not clocked yet. Let me explain what it is, why it is happening, and how businesses are already fixing it. The problem. Here is what is happening right now. Quietly, in tenders and procurement processes across the UK, big buyers, meaning large corporates, councils, universities, government contracts, are increasingly scoring their suppliers on sustainability data. Not just price, not just delivery, not just quality, but actual environmental performance. That means when your business submits a bid, there is now a section asking you about your emissions, your energy use, your supply chain footprint, and if you cannot answer those questions credibly, you lose points. Sometimes enough points to lose the whole contract. Most businesses do not realise this is happening. They just get the email saying, we've decided to go with another supplier this time, and assume it was price. It often wasn't. It was the sustainability answer that let them down. And this is spreading fast. 2 years ago, this was mostly happening at FTSE 100 level. Now it is happening at mid-sized companies. Next year, it'll be happening everywhere. Why this matters for you specifically. If your business sells anything to another business, this affects you because the reason big buyers are asking these questions is that they themselves are being asked by regulators, by investors, and by their own customers. And to hit their targets, they need their suppliers, meaning you, to have their house In order too. So you have 2 choices. You can keep guessing your way through tender responses, hoping nobody looks too closely at the sustainability section, and quietly lose contracts you never realised were close. Or you can get organised now, get the basic answers in place, and turn that same section from a weakness into a genuine competitive advantage. The businesses that get ahead of this in the next 12 months will win contracts That their less prepared competitors will lose. That is not an aspiration. That is already happening. How we have helped other businesses fix this. Here's the good news. This is fixable, and it is not as complicated or expensive as most small business owners fear. We have worked with businesses across food and beverage, marketing, professional services, and manufacturing to fix this exact problem. And what we have found consistently is that most small businesses are much closer to a credible answer than they think. They just do not have the framework to put it all together. What we do is straightforward. We help you get a real defensible number for your business's emissions in language your business and your buyers actually want to see. We show you the 2 or 3 moves that make the biggest difference for your specific business without wasting your money on things that do not move the needle, and we give you the exact wording to use in tender responses so you stop losing points on that section and start winning them. For most businesses, this can be done in a matter of weeks, not months, and the return usually shows up in the next tender cycle. The businesses we have helped with this are not doing anything dramatic. They are doing the basics properly, but because so few of their competitors are doing the same, that alone is enough to move them ahead. If you are running a small business and you suspect you might be losing work because of this, drop me a comment or send me message. I'm genuinely happy to have a short conversation and tell you honestly whether this is something worth acting on for your business. You do not need to become a sustainability expert. You just need to know your numbers before your competitors do. I'll see you next week.
