Best carbon accounting software for NHS suppliers in 2027

In short

• The 2027 NHS carbon reduction plan requirement asks for more than PPN 006 does: global emissions and every relevant scope 3 category, from April 2027, a separate and wider obligation from the voluntary Evergreen self-assessment.
• The free government carbon reduction plan template is the honest starting point for a lot of suppliers.
• Buy for the refresh cycle, not the first submission, because the obligation repeats every year.

If you sell into the NHS, the requirement is a document with a deadline, not a dashboard. From April 2027, suppliers publish targets, emissions and a carbon reduction plan covering global emissions and every relevant scope 3 category under the 2027 NHS carbon reduction plan requirement, which asks for meaningfully more than PPN 006 does, and is a separate thing from NHS Evergreen, the voluntary supplier self-assessment. So the right shortlist is the tools that produce a defensible plan you can refresh every year, and for a lot of smaller suppliers the honest answer is a free official template plus one calculation. Here is who is in scope, what you can verify about each, and where we do not fit.

We make one of the platforms below. It is described with the same evidence standard as the others, and the case for not buying it is stated plainly.

What is actually being asked of an NHS supplier?

Three things get conflated here, and confusing them is the most expensive mistake in this space.

PPN 006 applies to UK central government contracts above GBP 5 million per year including VAT, and the plan has to be refreshed every 12 months. It covers scope 1, scope 2 and a defined subset of five of the fifteen GHG Protocol scope 3 categories, with UK operations as the geographic boundary. Purchased goods and services, usually a supplier's largest single category, is not one of the five. It is a prescribed format, not a report of your own design. We walk through it in the PPN 006 checklist for UK suppliers.

The 2027 NHS carbon reduction plan requirement goes further, for NHS contracts at or above GBP 5 million per year (and for all new NHS frameworks regardless of value, unless deemed not proportionate). From April 2027, suppliers publicly report targets, emissions and a carbon reduction plan covering all relevant global scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Global rather than UK-only, and every scope 3 category deemed relevant, with a reasoned explanation for any deemed not relevant, rather than the fixed five-category subset. If you have been passing PPN 006 comfortably with a partial inventory, that is the gap to close. The plan must be published on the supplier's own website and board-approved (or director-approved where there is no board).

NHS Evergreen is a separate thing again, and the name gets attached to both of the above in casual use. It is a voluntary online self-assessment against four maturity levels, run by NHS England, covering more than carbon: modern slavery and transparency reporting through schemes such as CDP, EcoVadis and B Corp are in scope too. NHS England states plainly that "the assessment has not been designed to be included as a scored or evaluated requirement in procurement," with two exceptions: it is mandatory for NHS Supply Chain Frameworks and NHS England Medicines tenders. So the commercial case for a higher maturity level is readiness and relationship, not a better bid score. Our note on the Evergreen supplier assessment sets out what it actually covers.

The practical consequence: the deadline that matters for most suppliers is the 2027 CRP requirement's tender or contract date, and its format is prescribed. That is a very different buying problem from corporate sustainability reporting, and general ESG platforms are not built around it.

Do you need software at all?

Sometimes not, and any page like this that refuses to say so is selling.

Our competitor census, read on 27 August 2026, lists the UK government carbon reduction plan template as a genuine competitor in this market, on the grounds that it is free, official and the default option for every PPN 006 bidder. It records spreadsheets in the same way, as a real incumbent rather than a strawman.

If you are a single-site supplier with one energy bill, a small van fleet and a short purchase ledger, the template plus a careful one-off calculation will produce a compliant plan. Where that breaks down is the refresh. Doing it once by hand is fine. Doing it every 12 months, consistently enough that this year's number is comparable to last year's, is where people reach for a tool. The 2027 requirement to report every relevant scope 3 category pushes the same way, because a manual scope 3 build is hard to repeat identically.

Which tools are genuinely in scope?

Three groups.

UK procurement specialists. Our census, read on 27 August 2026, records Climatise as positioning explicitly on PPN 06/21, NHS Net Zero, SECR and ESOS, and Emitwise as a UK vendor with 19 procurement pages on a 147-page site, a disproportionate share that tells you where they aim. Neither was listed on G2 when the census was taken.

UK SME carbon platforms. Seedling is rated 5.0 from 11 reviews on G2, read on 27 August 2026, with a dedicated adviser included and no published paid price. EcoHedge publishes a free Lite tier and Express Growth at GBP 990 per year, read from their pricing page on 27 August 2026, and their comparison page, read the same day, claims SECR, PPN 006 and HMRC categories built in.

General European platforms with UK output. Coolset, rated 4.7 from 18 reviews on 27 August 2026, and Hedgehog, rated 4.7 from 9 reviews the same day. Broader products, so check the output document rather than the feature list.

How do the options compare on what you can verify?

Ratings and prices change. Every cell above was read on 27 August 2026 and is worth rechecking before it goes into a business case. Note that two of the vendors most explicitly aimed at NHS and PPN work carry no public review evidence at all, which is not a mark against the product but does mean you are relying on references rather than ratings.

Which one fits which supplier?

Under the PPN 006 threshold, single site, first plan. Use the free template. Spend the effort on getting scope 1 and 2 right rather than on procurement.

Above the threshold, refreshing annually, UK only. A platform earns its cost in year two, when the question is whether this year's figure is comparable to last year's. Ask specifically what happens when factors update mid-cycle.

Preparing for the 2027 requirement with operations outside the UK. This is the case where a UK-only tool can trap you, because the requirement covers global emissions. Check multi-entity and multi-country handling before you shortlist on PPN features.

Every relevant scope 3 category for the first time. Treat this as its own project rather than a software feature. The tool matters less than deciding which categories you can evidence and which you will estimate, and saying so in the plan.

Selling into both NHS and commercial customers. You will be answering questionnaires in several formats from the same underlying numbers. Test export against one real customer template before you buy.

Where is Hedgehog not the right choice here?

Our platform names PPN 006 and the CO2-Prestatieladder as reporting outputs alongside the GHG Protocol, names SECR, CSRD and SB253 under legislation, and supports SBTi, B-Corp and EcoVadis workflows. It carries over 20,000 factors, allows supplier-specific data, and handles multiple entities and sites with roles for data owners, auditors and managers. A free account needs no sales call, and Pro starts at EUR 1,200 per year.

Now the limits, all from paying customers on our public G2 profile.

Getting data in is the work. A small business reviewer said on G2 in August 2026 that once the data is loaded everything works perfectly, and that loading it is the challenging part. For a build of every relevant scope 3 category under the 2027 requirement, that is the honest shape of the project.

We are not a broad ESG platform. A mid-market reviewer rated us 3.5 out of 5 on G2 in June 2026 and said the platform is less complete for wider ESG and CSRD reporting, with no data source management and no decarbonisation target monitoring feature. If your NHS work sits inside a larger ESG programme, that gap is real.

We are a European product with a UK output, not a UK procurement specialist. The vendors named above that position solely on PPN and NHS work will have seen more of these submissions than we have. If your only requirement forever is a UK public sector plan, weigh that.

What should you do between now and April 2027?

Work backwards from the assessment date. Establish your scope 1 and 2 first, because they are quick and everything else depends on the same boundary decisions. Then map which scope 3 categories you can actually evidence and which you will have to estimate, and write that reasoning down, because the 2027 requirement asks for every relevant scope 3 category and a documented estimate beats a silent omission.

If you are small enough that this is one person's second job, our guide to choosing a tool as a smaller company is a faster route than a formal evaluation. If you would rather map the gap with someone first, you can book a meeting.

Sources: Hedgehog platform, Hedgehog on G2, Coolset on G2, Seedling on G2, EcoHedge pricing, and an internal census of 26 competitor domains. All read 27 August 2026.

Facts on this page were last verified on 2026-09-17.