What Is NHS Evergreen

If you already supply the NHS, or want to in the future, you’ll need to wrap your head around the NHS Evergreen Sustainable Supplier Assessment.

At first, it appears straightforward. You fill out an online assessment, answer some questions, provide evidence, and then receive a level. Straightforward enough, you might think.

But it can be confusing.

Most of the businesses I speak to do not ignore sustainability. They are usually doing far more useful work than they realise. They may have reduced travel by hybrid working, changed energy contracts to renewable sources, supported local communities through charity work or started collecting carbon data.

The challenge is that these great initiatives aren’t recognised and recorded in a way that supports the assessment.

Hence the gap.

Evergreen isn’t at all about pretending your business is perfect. It’s about showing where you are now, what evidence you hold today, what’s missing, and your plans to improve.

This guide is for all those businesses that need to achieve NHS Evergreen Level 1.

Explore NHS Evergreen support options

What is the NHS Evergreen Assessment?

The NHS Evergreen Assessment is a supplier sustainability assessment.

It helps NHS buyers understand where suppliers are on their sustainability journey against a best-practice position, and what the NHS is committing to. It looks at areas such as carbon reduction and reporting, modern slavery, social value, supply chain controls and sustainability governance.

It’s a maturity assessment in terms of sustainability. It is completed on the Atamis supplier portal.

It certainly is not asking for every business to be perfect from day one.

But it is asking suppliers to demonstrate what they have in place in terms of sustainability, how mature that approach is, and how they are improving. The demonstration element is that of evidence.

Why does Evergreen matter?

The NHS has clear net zero and sustainability ambitions. Suppliers are part of that picture because over 60% of the NHS’s total carbon footprint comes from its supply chain.

The NHS doesn’t want to work with suppliers that will hinder its sustainability journey. Evergreen is the tool that the NHS is using as a yardstick to measure sustainability.

Who needs to complete the NHS Evergreen Assessment?

This all depends on how you supply the NHS and which procurement route you are using.

If you are bidding directly for NHS work, check the tender wording carefully and do not assume that the same requirement applies in every situation. NHS Supply Chain, NHS England medicines tenders, local NHS trusts, frameworks and subcontracting routes can all have slightly different wording. Since 6 April 2026, all suppliers submitting NHS Supply Chain tenders must have achieved Level 1 at the point of tender close.

Start with the evidence you already have

Most suppliers do not start with perfect documents. They start with a business that is already doing bits of the right thing.

The work is being done, but it’s scattered here and there.

A Carbon Reduction Plan may sit on one page of the website as text and not have been updated for a while. A modern slavery statement may exist but not say much about how the actual business operates. Social value activity is very often happening but rarely written down.

Evergreen rewards evidence.

For smaller suppliers, the first step usually isn’t to create a big, fancy ESG strategy. It’s to gather what you already have, spot what’s missing, and tell a clear, consistent story.

That means the Carbon Reduction Plan, Modern Slavery Statement, sustainability objectives and assessment answers should all point in the same direction.

The best submissions are clear, specific, and honest.

The four Evergreen maturity levels

Evergreen has four maturity levels.

If you are starting out, focus on Level 1 first. You can build from there.

Level 1: Entry-level maturity

The supplier has published a PPN-aligned Carbon Reduction Plan, including a UK net zero commitment and emissions reporting.

Level 2

The supplier has comprehensive net zero targets and reporting for carbon emissions at a global level, aligning with the NHS’s April 2027 requirements.

Level 3

The supplier has independently validated 2045 net zero targets and has completed the Modern Slavery Assessment Tool.

Level 4: Highest maturity

The supplier has independently validated 2045 net zero targets across the global organisation, transparency reporting and evidence of actively mapping its supply chain or investigating and mitigating modern slavery risks.

Generally, each level builds off the last. Sometimes, a business may have certain topic areas that are more developed — for instance, it may already have global carbon reporting but not the independent validation or modern slavery evidence required at the higher levels. The official April 2026 maturity criteria provide the full detail for each level.

Level 1 is about laying foundations

One of the biggest misunderstandings I see is suppliers thinking they need to have perfection before submitting.

You don’t need perfection to get started.

Level 1 is about putting the basics in place and showing your organisation is taking sustainability seriously. That your business respects what the NHS wants to achieve. Level 1 usually means checking:

It doesn’t need to be a big, high-budget, resource-intensive corporate ESG machine.

Just put something forward that is practical, proportionate, and credible.

What should a Carbon Reduction Plan do?

The Carbon Reduction Plan is the biggest evidence document — even at Level 1.

The plan needs to cover specific information to meet the requirements. The minimum criteria are contained in the government’s PPN 006 technical standard for completing Carbon Reduction Plans. Always review this and consider any changes in that reporting guidance.

For SMEs, the hard part usually isn’t writing the words. It’s knowing what data to include, which assumptions are reasonable, and how to explain any gaps honestly.

If your data isn’t perfect, don’t pretend it is (most businesses don’t have perfect data).

Explain what has been included, what has not yet been included, and what you will improve in the next reporting cycle. That includes the case if you have only been trading a few months — where you explain the data set and are entirely honest about that gap. An Evergreen reviewer wants to see the effort put into it — that you are trying, can understand why you are doing this, and that it is a continual improvement journey.

Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 in plain English

The language around emissions can make people feel overwhelmed. I wish I could rewrite the whole accounting system, but that’s what we have.

I usually explain it like this.

Scope 1 is the fuel you burn directly. For example, gas, diesel, petrol, company-owned vehicles or fuel used in your own operations.

Scope 2 is the electricity you buy. Think of the electricity bill arriving in your company’s name.

Both Scopes 1 and 2 are really easily calculated — as long as you are using the correct greenhouse gas conversion factors provided by the UK government.

Scope 3 is everything else. The wider value chain. That could include purchased goods, transport, waste, business travel, staff commuting, suppliers and other indirect impacts.

Scope 3 is where most businesses get stuck.

Totally understandable. Don’t panic.

You may not have perfect supplier data. You may be working from information from spend or mileage. It may be partial, or absent altogether.

The key is to be truly open and transparent.

Modern Slavery Statements: what I have learnt

Modern slavery is happening right here in the UK right now. The NHS wants you to address this head on. There are some great resources in the government’s practical guide to transparency in supply chains.

A modern slavery statement shouldn’t sound like it was copied from a big corporate template. It’s one of the most common weaknesses I see. The majority of the time they are far too general, and owned by HR with no oversight by the sustainability department.

A statement that says “we have zero tolerance of modern slavery” is not enough on its own.

For an SME, a stronger statement explains:

Make it specific to your business. For a food supplier, the risks may sit in ingredients, labour, packaging, logistics or imported goods. For a pharmaceutical supplier, the risks may sit in manufacturers, contract manufacturing, distributors, logistics or international supply chains.

The point is to show you’ve thought about your own business. Not just copied and pasted someone else’s statement. And that you recognise modern slavery as being a risk to society, that may even affect your business, that you are aware and being proactive.

Social value: shout about your good work, loud and proud

Social value means those efforts — often unconscious — that lead to positive impacts on people’s well-being, community and the wider society. Beyond fiscal and environmental.

Many smaller suppliers are already doing useful social value work.

They employ locally. Support community projects. Donate food. They are comfortable with their employees flexible working. They may support apprenticeships. Or help charities quietly without thinking to write it down.

That sort of work really matters here.

The problem is, too often it stays in people’s heads and not documented.

If you’re completing Evergreen or responding to an NHS tender, you can’t assume assessors know about the good work you do.

You need to capture it.

That doesn’t mean you need to write pages of marketing copy. It can be a simple social value summary that explains:

“No Level Awarded”: Don’t Panic

When a supplier gets a “No Level Awarded” result, the first thing I say is: don’t panic, you have got this.

It often means one of three things.

The evidence is missing.

The supplier has answered the question, but the document or link that proves the answer is just not there.

The evidence is too generic.

This is common with modern slavery statements, environmental policies and sustainability pages. The words sound fine, but they do not describe the actual business.

The evidence is inconsistent.

The assessment says one thing. The Carbon Reduction Plan says another. The website says something slightly different again. Those inconsistencies make it harder for a reviewer to know which information to rely on. They are worth sorting before you submit.

Before rewriting everything, check the evidence trail.

Five things to double-check before you press resubmit

If you have received “No Level Awarded”, I encourage you to check these five things first.

Make sure the assessment, Carbon Reduction Plan, website and tender submission all refer to the correct entity. Sounds basic, but I see it time and again, particularly where a company has a complex ownership structure.

If the assessment expects publicly available evidence, make sure the plan is actually published. That the link actually works.

Check the baseline year, reporting year, Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 figures. Make sure the totals align between the submission and documents. I see this regularly. These are easy mistakes to make, and a consistency check can catch them.

If there is no modern slavery statement, it’s a gap. If there is a statement, check whether it describes the business properly, and not just a generic cut-and-paste.

This is one I always check: does the evidence actually support the answer given?

CASE STUDY

Early-stage pharmaceutical supplier laying its sustainability foundations

One of the most useful pieces of work I have done was with a growing pharmaceutical supplier preparing for NHS procurement.

The business was very lean. Trading for only a few months. No sustainability department. It did not need a heavy ESG strategy that would put a lot of onus on the already busy board members.

The company just needed a clear evidence pack.

I developed a Carbon Reduction Plan, Modern Slavery Statement, ESG Policy, objectives and a practical roadmap. The roadmap wasn’t required for Level 1, but it was important for me to start to show the team that structure under continual improvement is essential.

I didn’t want to make the business look more mature than it really was.

The important thing I found was to explain exactly where the business stood, what assumptions were made, what evidence existed today, and to be really confident about what would be improved next. Learning here was to be honest about starting where you are, being specific, honest and wanting to keep improving.

CASE STUDY

A large healthcare group needing to maintain competitiveness

I see the Evergreen maturity level increasing in importance when it comes to pitching for NHS work. Working with a large, complex, multi-million-pound healthcare provider, they recognised that they needed to advance quickly in order to maintain competitive advantage. Some of their competitors confidently maintain a Level 4 Evergreen assessment result, and they fell short of this position.

They already had a lot of great activity in place. Their problem was that the evidence was not organised in a way that made the NHS Evergreen position clear.

There wasn’t a clear link between the assessment answers, policies, governance, and action plan.

I came in initially to provide a gap analysis and roadmap. It didn’t need another suite of documents. I needed a review of what was already in place and putting some common sense in terms of how things should be put together.

That makes sustainability feel less overwhelming — more planned and organised.

Sustainability reporting: a useful tool

I have also learnt a lot from years of sustainability reporting.

The best reports aren’t purely technical documents.

Instead, they help the reader understand the business. And sneakily they even help the writer perform an annual gap analysis! They show progress over time against the ESG issues that matter to your business — what has improved and what still needs work. They include numbers, but also storytelling examples.

I like companies to keep old reports available online, so people can see the journey over time.

ISO 14001 thinking can always help

You don’t need ISO 14001 certification to complete Evergreen.

But the thinking behind the ISO 14001 framework is really useful as best practice.

At its heart, ISO 14001 is a toolkit for continual improvement. A way to plan what matters, do the work, check your performance and evidence and act to improve.

I love the ISO framework because it stops sustainability becoming a pile of disconnected documents.

That doesn’t mean you should chase a full ISO certificate.

It means using the best parts of a sensible framework to keep things going and get your documents controlled.

Do small suppliers need an ESG strategy?

An ESG strategy is a way of managing the environmental, social and governance components of your business. It is often supported by an ESG policy, objectives and procedures.

Usually, you don’t need one at the start.

Most small suppliers aiming for Level 1 just need a clear evidence base, not a burdensome ESG strategy. That evidence base might include:

You can always build more maturity later.

How to build a simple evidence pack

A simple evidence pack can make Evergreen much easier. I would usually include:

Carbon evidence

Carbon Reduction Plan, emissions data, assumptions, reduction actions and approval.

Modern slavery evidence

Modern Slavery Statement, supply chain description, risk areas, due diligence and improvement actions.

Environmental evidence

Environmental measures already in place, policies, waste, energy, transport, packaging, procurement or other practical examples.

Social value evidence

Community activity, local employment, charity support, staff wellbeing, responsible sourcing or other relevant examples.

Governance evidence

Who owns sustainability, how actions are reviewed, what gets updated annually and where evidence is stored.

That evidence pack doesn’t need to be complicated, but uphold good document control. So make sure your evidence is always dated and approved as a minimum.

For practical guidance on organising your evidence, assigning ownership and keeping it updated year on year, see the evidence management guide.

How Evergreen Assessment can help

Evergreen Assessment is an independent boutique consultancy.

I’m neither part of NHS England, NHS Supply Chain, or the Atamis assessment platform. My role is to help suppliers understand what the assessment is asking for, review the evidence and identify what needs to change.

Support usually falls into three routes: a Rescue Review for suppliers who have received “No Level Awarded” or feel stuck; a Pre-Submission Check for suppliers who are nearly ready but want another pair of eyes before they submit; and Evidence Pack and Level 1 Readiness Support for suppliers who need more hands-on help with the Carbon Reduction Plan, Modern Slavery Statement, social value evidence, ESG objectives and a final readiness review.

I can’t guarantee the assessment outcome, since the final decision is made by the assessment process.

What I can do is help you spot what’s missing, strengthen your evidence, and submit with more confidence.

If you are wondering whether AI tools can help you prepare, the answer is nuanced.

Frequently asked questions

See the full FAQ page for answers to common Evergreen questions, or get in touch directly.

Final thought

Evergreen can feel frustrating when you’re trying to run a business and respond to a tender at the same time.

But it gets much more manageable when you treat it as an evidence exercise.

What do you already have? What does the assessment ask for?

Where do the two not quite match?

Start there. You probably don’t need to start over. Breathe. You’ve got this.

Related reading and support

• Who must complete Evergreen?
• How to organise your evidence