Watershed's 2026 Carbon Removal RFP: What It Means for the Future of Sustainable Procurement
The carbon removal landscape is evolving fast. Watershed, one of the most recognized climate tech platforms, recently opened its 2026 Carbon Removal Request for Proposals (RFP) round — a significant move that signals how seriously leading organizations are now treating carbon removal as a core component of their climate strategy. For procurement professionals, business owners, and anyone navigating the RFP process, this development offers more than just an environmental headline. It's a masterclass in how structured, strategic procurement can drive meaningful sustainability outcomes.
Let's unpack what Watershed's initiative means, why it matters beyond the climate tech world, and how you can apply these lessons to your own procurement and RFP processes.
What Is Watershed's Carbon Removal RFP?
Watershed is a climate software company that helps businesses measure, reduce, and remove their carbon emissions. Each year, Watershed runs a Carbon Removal RFP on behalf of its corporate clients, pooling demand from multiple buyers to source high-quality carbon removal credits from emerging and established providers.
The 2026 round represents an evolution of this model. By issuing a formal RFP, Watershed creates a structured, transparent process through which carbon removal suppliers — ranging from direct air capture companies to biochar producers and enhanced weathering startups — can compete for contracts. This process mirrors the best practices of traditional procurement: clear evaluation criteria, defined timelines, and rigorous vendor assessment.
For procurement professionals, the mechanics here are familiar. What's different is the subject matter: instead of sourcing office supplies or IT services, Watershed is sourcing tonnes of CO₂ removal. But the underlying principles of good procurement — clarity, transparency, fairness, and alignment with organizational goals — apply just as powerfully.
Why Carbon Removal Is Becoming a Procurement Priority
Carbon removal is no longer a niche concern reserved for environmental teams. It is rapidly becoming a mainstream procurement category. Here's why:
Regulatory Pressure Is Mounting
Governments across the EU, UK, and North America are tightening emissions reporting requirements. The EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the SEC's climate disclosure rules in the United States are pushing companies to be more transparent about their carbon footprints. This means that procurement decisions — from the suppliers you choose to the logistics solutions you use — are increasingly scrutinized through a carbon lens.
Corporate Net-Zero Commitments Demand Action
Thousands of companies have made net-zero pledges, many targeting 2030, 2040, or 2050 deadlines. As reduction efforts hit their limits, carbon removal becomes the tool of last resort for residual emissions. Procurement teams are now being tasked with sourcing carbon removal credits alongside traditional goods and services.
Stakeholder Expectations Are Shifting
Customers, investors, and employees increasingly expect organizations to demonstrate real climate action — not just set targets. Procurement professionals who can source credible, high-quality carbon removal solutions are becoming strategic assets within their organizations.
The Watershed RFP round is a direct response to this reality. It's structured procurement meeting climate urgency, and it's a model worth studying.
Key Lessons from Watershed's RFP Approach
Whether you're sourcing carbon removal credits or any other sustainability-related service, Watershed's methodology offers several procurement best practices worth borrowing.
1. Define Your Criteria Before You Publish
One of the hallmarks of Watershed's carbon removal RFP is its use of rigorous, pre-defined evaluation criteria. Before suppliers even submit proposals, Watershed makes clear what it values: permanence of storage, additionality, measurability, co-benefits, and price. There is no ambiguity about what "good" looks like.
This is a lesson every procurement team should internalize. Before you issue any RFP, define your evaluation criteria clearly and weight them appropriately. Vague requirements lead to incomparable proposals, wasted time, and poor vendor selection. Whether you're evaluating carbon removal suppliers or cloud software vendors, the discipline of pre-defining success criteria is non-negotiable.
2. Pool Demand to Increase Leverage
Watershed aggregates demand from multiple corporate buyers, giving them collective purchasing power that individual companies would never have on their own. This demand aggregation allows them to access suppliers that might otherwise only work with very large buyers, and it drives better pricing and terms.
Procurement professionals can apply this principle through consortium purchasing, industry buying groups, or even internal demand aggregation across business units. The lesson is simple: the more clearly you can articulate and consolidate your demand, the stronger your negotiating position.
3. Prioritize Quality Over Volume
Watershed has been explicit about preferring fewer, higher-quality carbon removal credits over larger volumes of lower-quality offsets. This reflects a maturation in how the market thinks about carbon procurement — and it's a principle that translates across procurement categories.
In your own RFP processes, resist the temptation to default to the lowest-cost option. Instead, develop a total value of ownership framework that accounts for quality, reliability, long-term supplier viability, and alignment with your organizational values. A supplier that delivers consistent, measurable impact — even at a premium — is often worth more than a cheaper alternative that underdelivers.
4. Build Transparency Into the Process
Watershed publishes its evaluation framework and shares results with the market, contributing to broader ecosystem transparency. This kind of openness builds trust with suppliers, encourages better proposals, and helps the market develop more effectively over time.
In your procurement practice, consider how you can increase transparency without compromising competitive sensitivity. Clear communication about your evaluation process, timely feedback to unsuccessful bidders, and honest debriefs all contribute to a healthier supplier ecosystem — one where the best vendors are motivated to compete for your business.
How to Integrate Sustainability Into Your Own RFP Process
Watershed's carbon removal RFP is a specialized example, but the principles it embodies apply to any organization looking to embed sustainability into its procurement function. Here's a practical framework for doing that.
Step 1: Establish Your Sustainability Baseline
Before you can write a sustainability-focused RFP, you need to understand your current environmental footprint. This means auditing your existing supplier base, understanding where your Scope 3 emissions are concentrated, and identifying which procurement categories have the highest environmental impact.
This baseline gives your RFP requirements credibility. When you ask suppliers about their carbon footprints or sustainability certifications, you're doing so from a position of informed intent — not just ticking a compliance box.
Step 2: Embed Sustainability Criteria Into Vendor Qualification
Many organizations treat sustainability as a nice-to-have in the RFP process — a few questions tacked onto the end of a long questionnaire. Leading procurement teams treat it as a qualification criterion.
Consider requiring suppliers to demonstrate:
- ISO 14001 certification or equivalent environmental management systems
- Published carbon reduction targets aligned with science-based standards
- Transparent supply chain practices and third-party audits
- Evidence of circular economy principles in their operations
By making these requirements explicit in your RFP, you signal to the market that sustainability is a genuine priority — and you filter out vendors who aren't ready to meet that bar.
Step 3: Weight Sustainability in Your Scoring Model
It's not enough to ask sustainability questions if they don't influence your final decision. Assign a meaningful weighting to sustainability criteria in your evaluation scorecard — somewhere between 15% and 30% depending on the nature of the procurement and your organizational goals.
This weighting should reflect your actual priorities. If your company has a published net-zero commitment, sustainability performance should carry significant weight. If you're in a regulated industry with specific environmental obligations, compliance-related criteria should be front and center.
Step 4: Ask for Measurable Commitments, Not Just Intentions
One of the weaknesses of many sustainability-focused RFPs is that they accept vague commitments — "we are committed to reducing our emissions" — without requiring specific, measurable evidence. Watershed's approach is instructive here: they ask for quantified carbon removal with clear verification methodologies.
In your RFPs, push suppliers beyond intentions. Ask for:
- Specific emissions reduction targets with timelines
- Third-party verified carbon footprint data
- Contractual commitments to sustainability performance, with reporting requirements
- Case studies demonstrating measurable environmental impact
Measurable commitments are the difference between sustainability theater and genuine progress.
Step 5: Build Long-Term Supplier Relationships Around Shared Goals
Watershed's carbon removal program isn't a one-time transaction — it's an ongoing effort to develop the carbon removal market over time. They invest in supplier relationships, provide feedback, and return year after year to the same RFP process.
This long-term orientation is a best practice for sustainable procurement more broadly. Rather than constantly switching suppliers in search of marginal cost savings, consider building deeper partnerships with vendors who share your sustainability values. These relationships enable collaborative problem-solving, joint innovation, and continuous improvement — outcomes that transactional procurement rarely achieves.
Tools That Can Help You Build Better Sustainability-Focused RFPs
Creating an RFP that genuinely integrates sustainability criteria — rather than paying lip service to them — requires careful drafting, clear structure, and thoughtful evaluation design. This is where the right tools can make a significant difference.
AI-powered platforms like CreateYourRFP are designed to help procurement professionals and business owners build structured, comprehensive RFPs quickly and efficiently. Whether you're sourcing carbon removal services, sustainable packaging suppliers, or green logistics partners, having a tool that helps you organize your requirements, define evaluation criteria, and structure vendor questions can save significant time and improve the quality of your process.
The value of such tools isn't just speed — it's consistency. When your RFP structure is clear and well-organized, suppliers can respond more effectively, your evaluation process becomes more defensible, and your outcomes improve. For sustainability-focused procurement in particular, where the criteria can be complex and unfamiliar, having a structured framework to work from is genuinely useful.
The Bigger Picture: Procurement as a Climate Tool
Watershed's 2026 Carbon Removal RFP is a reminder that procurement is one of the most powerful levers organizations have for driving environmental change. Every dollar spent is a vote for the kind of economy we want to build. When procurement teams apply rigorous, values-aligned RFP processes to sustainability categories, they don't just reduce their own footprint — they help build markets for the solutions the world needs.
The carbon removal market is still young. Many of the technologies being procured through Watershed's RFP — direct air capture, enhanced weathering, ocean-based removal — are at early commercial stages. By creating structured demand through credible RFP processes, buyers like Watershed's clients are helping these technologies scale, driving down costs and accelerating deployment.
This is the broader promise of sustainability-focused procurement: it doesn't just manage risk or satisfy stakeholders. It actively shapes markets, rewards innovation, and contributes to systemic change.
Final Thoughts
Watershed's decision to open its 2026 Carbon Removal RFP round is more than a climate story. It's a procurement story — one about how structured, transparent, criteria-driven buying processes can channel capital toward solutions that matter.
For procurement professionals and business owners, the takeaways are clear. Define your criteria before you publish. Weight sustainability meaningfully in your evaluation. Ask for measurable commitments, not just intentions. Build long-term supplier relationships around shared goals. And use the best available tools to structure your process effectively.
The organizations that figure out how to embed genuine sustainability into their procurement function won't just be doing the right thing environmentally. They'll be building competitive advantage, managing regulatory risk, and positioning themselves for a world where how you buy matters just as much as what you buy.
Watershed is showing us what that looks like in the carbon removal space. The question is: what will it look like in yours?