The UK wide Sustain Review Group met early in the new academic year to do a periodic review of the UK HE sector’s Supply Chain Code of Conduct. This was done under the brief from an earlier meeting of the UK FHE (Further and Higher Education) Responsible Procurement Group (formerly known as the HEPA and EAUC RPG) to keep changes to a minimum on this review. The document has not received any fundamental changes (as none were felt essential) but it has brought increased clarity in some of the content and updated references to external standards and organisations mentioned.

The updated version was endorsed by the UK FHE Responsible Procurement Group on 5 November 2025 on behalf of the UK HE sector’s procurement & sustainability communities.

Institutions are encouraged to use this updated Sustain Supply Chain Code of Conduct on procurement exercises that are commencing from now, but it is not felt necessary to require any existing contracted suppliers that have agreed to the previous version to sign up to this one due to the minimal nature of changes.

We plan to carry out a larger scale review of the code commencing circa 18 months after publication of this update.