Model Wording for Tender Documentation
Maintenance &
Refurbishment Services
SERVICE SPECIFIC BRIEF
As part of our commitment to reducing environmental impacts, we require that all of the
equipment and associated services we use, or is used on our behalf, including furniture, is as
environmentally efficient as possible in terms of energy, carbon and resources whilst
delivering the required capability.
Targets
We endorse the principle of going beyond the minimum regulatory requirements, where cost
effective. This building must meet or exceed the operational target for the building of:
[delete as appropriate]
 to reduce whole life costs of the furniture service [by x% from a baseline of £y per unit]
over the lifetime of the contract, while delivering effective capability. Whole life costs to
include design, construction, packaging, transport, storage, provision, use, adaptation,
maintenance, refurbishment and end of life management;
 to achieve an average life in service of the units of furniture provided (describe as
necessary) of X years, assuming that the demand for the capability provided by the unit
is greater than X years; and
 to achieve a year on year reduction in both directly attributable furniture waste and
peripheral furniture waste (such as packaging and transport).
Resource Management Plan
The Service Provider is required to develop a Resource Management (RMP) for this service,
to include:
 a forecast for use, re-use, refurbishment and recycling of end of life furniture. This will
include furniture that is beyond use by the client but which may be re-used elsewhere;
 actions to be taken in furniture design and specification, engagement with providers of
furniture recycling services and end users to reduce resource consumption and
associated whole life costs, including actions to:
o reduce energy and resource consumption in manufacture, transport, storage,
packaging, refurbishment, maintenance , recycling and disposal;
o selecting alternative materials, where relevant, for example to reduce weight
or improve resilience;
o reducing the quantity of materials required, particularly non- sustainable
materials as a % of the whole;
o selecting materials with longer life expectancy;
o increasing recovery and reuse of materials.
Communications and continual improvement (contract management)
Communication between key internal stakeholders is essential in order to review
achievement of performance targets.
Reporting process
The service provider will ensure requirements are applied and clearly communicated to
relevant contractors and subcontractors and will submit evidence that the minimum
requirements and any other measures specified in the RMP have been implemented.
PRE-QUALIFICATION QUESTIONS
As part of our commitment to resource efficiency and reducing environmental impacts, we
require that all of our staff use furniture services as efficiently as possible.
We are committed to minimising materials, resource and energy use and associated carbon
emissions. Further detail is provided in the Furniture Services Brief.
1. Detail your understanding, experience and achievements in cost- effectively providing
furnishing services which maximise where practical, the durability and longevity in
service of the furniture whilst minimising the use of materials, resources and energy
and reducing the whole life costs of furnishing delivery.
2. Detail your understanding and experience in providing furnishing services and
associated energy and resource efficiency performance data to clients, providing
analysis and advice for improvements to furnishing services.
3. Detail your understanding and experience in maximising the sustainably resourced,
recycled and recyclable content of furniture and the recycling or re-use of furniture at
the end of its useful life
4. Detail your understanding and experience in helping clients to reduce energy and
resource consumption and minimise associated packaging impacts in the provision of
furniture services.
An ideal PPQ response would provide the following details:
[Delete as appropriate]
 
evidence of having optimised where practical the durability and longevity in service of
furniture and its recycling or re-use when no longer in use by the client;
 evidence of an understanding of the whole life costs associated with a furniture provision
service and methods of achieving reductions in whole life costs of the service;
 evidence of achieving energy, carbon, packaging and resource efficiency in the delivery
of a furniture provision service; and
 evidence of providing clients with key furniture and associated materials, waste, energy,
carbon and water data with analysis and recommendations for changes/ adaptations to
furniture provision to improve resource efficiency in a cost effective way.
INVITATION TO TENDER
Please describe your approach to:
1. Reducing the whole life cost of furnishing services;
2. Providing data/ information to support claims that whole life cost savings have been
made;
3. Helping us achieve our target for recycled content in manufacture; and
4. Helping us achieve our target for recycling or re-use at the end of life, of furniture no
longer providing the capability we sought from it.
Please identify any factors that you believe to be significant to the cost- effective
achievement of the efficiency targets set for a furniture provision service.
An ideal ITT response would provide the following details:
 a commitment to developing and implementing a focus on whole life costs that achieves
the client’s corporate targets;
o Includes consideration of purchase, hire/rental of furniture provision or
inclusion in overall managed service best value options
 commentary on the key issues to be addressed in relation to the provision of materials,
energy, carbon and resource efficient furnishing services, which may include identifying
the major sources of materials, energy and other resource use, and suggesting measures
by which these impacts can be reduced; including:
o application of relevant standards (e.g. use of Government Buying Standard for
furniture and/or the Government’s standard for the procurement of timber);
o a focus on durability, longevity in service and end of life options to optimise
reuse and recycling;
o provision of an in use furniture assessment to identify interventions that
o
o
o
o
would limit damage and extend the life in use of the furniture;
provision of data to the client and recommendations for the improvement of
the performance of the service and the better attainment of the client’s
objectives for the service;
adoption of lean manufacturing processes in the supply chain;
analysis of carbon impacts of differing manufacturing options; and
details on how the furniture provision service and associated materials, water,
energy, carbon, and waste efficiency performance will be measured and
monitored in order to demonstrate achievement of KPIs. If the service
provider considers other or additional KPIs to be of relevance and better
equipped to assess performance they should provide structured argument for
their use.