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Raise Lens

Carbon Removal tenders to watch, June 2026

By Andrew Holden

Public procurement rarely makes the highlight reel when founders talk about non-dilutive funding, but it should. Government and multilateral contracts tend to be larger than grants, are renewable, and tell you something grants cannot: where public money is actually committed, not just earmarked. A £2.5m contract to supply carbon credits is a revenue line, not a one-off cheque.

The other thing worth understanding is timing. Procurement calendars roll continuously. Notices drop throughout the year, and closing windows can be as short as three to four weeks from publication. That means watching this space monthly, or ideally weekly, rather than waiting for an annual round to open.

The contracts

Natural England: Canada Farm Meadows rewetting

Natural England is procuring culvert replacement and ditch restoration works on a designated wetland peat meadow in England. The objective is to rewet the site, halt carbon losses from peat oxidation, and improve biodiversity habitat. This is primarily a civil and ecological engineering commission, not a research or consultancy one. Bidders should be specialist ecological contractors or civil engineering firms with demonstrated experience in wetland drainage, ditch management, and water control infrastructure on sensitive sites.

Geographic scope is GB only.

DSIT: purchase of carbon credits for the new ECMWF headquarters

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is running an open procurement to source carbon credits offsetting approximately 5,165 tonnes of embodied carbon from the construction of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts' new net-zero headquarters. The budget is up to £2.5m. This is one of the larger buyer-side carbon-credit contracts in the current UK pipeline.

Bidders must be carbon-credit brokers, offset providers, or verified suppliers with a credible track record in construction-sector embodied-carbon offsetting. The procurement is open, and the geographic scope covers both GB and EU. Given the embodied-carbon framing, the credits must be robust enough to withstand scrutiny from a technical institution that measures atmospheric science for a living.

  • Department for Science, Innovation and Technology | Closing: 23 June 2026 | Estimated value: $2,604,167 | View on Raise Lens

Natural England: agri-environment scheme heritage actions research

Natural England is seeking a research contractor to conduct a scoping review and evidence assessment of co-benefits arising from agri-environment scheme heritage actions. The scope covers biodiversity, soil health, water quality, carbon sequestration, and landscape outcomes. This is a synthesis and science communication role, not original field research.

Bidders should have expertise in environmental evidence review and the ability to communicate findings to non-technical policy audiences. GB scope only. The value is modest ($50,000), but for a small research consultancy or university spin-out with the right evidence-synthesis background, it is a straightforward fit.

Stadtverwaltung Cottbus: contaminated land remediation, former chemical trading site

The city administration of Cottbus (Germany) is procuring project management and engineering services for the remediation of a former chemical trading site. The work covers contaminated-land assessment, environmental engineering oversight, and project management for brownfield rehabilitation.

This one sits at the edge of the carbon removal taxonomy. Brownfield remediation intersects with soil carbon and land-use change, and some firms working in carbon land projects do carry contaminated-land competencies. Geographic scope is DE only, and bidders need a strong track record in industrial brownfield work under German environmental regulation.

National Trust: Dorset Peat Partnership restoration works, Greenlands 2026

The National Trust is procuring ecological restoration works on a degraded peat mire system in Dorset. Scope includes bund creation, dam installation, and vegetation management to restore the carbon-sequestering function of the site. This is an open procurement, GB only.

Bidders must demonstrate prior experience on protected and sensitive habitat sites, not just general ecological contracting. Working on a peat mire under conservation designation has specific regulatory and methodological requirements. If you have completed similar work under Countryside Stewardship or for other conservation bodies, this is worth prioritising.

DESNZ: Industrial Decarbonisation Research Programme

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is procuring a research consortium to deliver a multi-workpackage industrial decarbonisation evidence programme. Workpackages cover fuel switching, energy efficiency, carbon capture and removal, and lifecycle assessment methods. This is the largest contract in this round at just under $5.9m, and DESNZ is explicitly seeking consortia, so a single organisation is unlikely to be in scope.

Eligible bidders are research organisations or consortia with cross-cutting expertise in industrial decarbonisation, policy analysis, stakeholder engagement, and technical assessment of low-carbon technology pathways. The procurement is open and GB-scoped. If you are a smaller research organisation, the right move here is to identify a lead consortium partner rather than attempting a solo bid.

  • Department for Energy Security and Net Zero | Closing: 24 July 2026 | Estimated value: $5,863,750 | View on Raise Lens

How tenders differ from grants

The bid process for a public tender is more formal than a grant application and carries real preparation overhead. Most contracts above a threshold require proof of insurance (public liability, professional indemnity), company accounts for the last two or three financial years, and references from prior comparable contracts. Restricted and negotiated procurements may shortlist first, so a pre-qualification questionnaire precedes the full invitation to tender. Lead time from first seeing a notice to submitting a compliant bid is typically three to six weeks, and some notices compress that window further. On Raise Lens, grants and tenders appear on the same /opportunities feed: you can filter by funding type to show tenders only, or compare them side by side when you are assessing whether a given opportunity is worth the preparation time.

Use this in Raise Lens

Raise Lens surfaces these opportunities through a set of filters designed to cut to what is actually relevant for your organisation's profile. Here is a practical workflow for acting on what you have just read.

  • Go to /opportunities and set Sector to "Carbon removal" and Type to "Tender": this narrows the feed to contracts in scope and removes grants from view so you can assess timelines cleanly.
  • Set a geographic filter matching where your company is registered and has prior delivery experience: bidding outside your jurisdiction without a local partner adds risk that most evaluators will notice.
  • Save the buyers you want to track (Natural England, DESNZ, DSIT) as Watchlists on /funders: when those buyers publish new notices, you will see them in your feed before the window shortens.
  • For each contract you decide to pursue, open the /draft tool and paste in the tender summary: it will generate a first-pass structure for your method statement or covering letter, which you then edit against the actual specification documents.

The contracts above close between 23 June and 24 July 2026. If you are reading this in the second half of June, the first two DSIT and Natural England notices need to move to the top of your stack today.

Browse the full carbon removal tender pipeline on Raise Lens at /opportunities?sector=carbon-removal&type=tender.