Consultancy: Third Independent Review of the Implementation of the Biodiversity Offset Agreement by BMM Pty

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Project Reference: P03719

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is a membership union uniquely composed of both government and civil society organisations. It provides public, private and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with the knowledge and tools that enable human progress, economic development and nature conservation to take place together.

Created in 1948, the IUCN is now the world’s largest and most diverse environmental network, harnessing the knowledge, resources and reach of more than 1,400 member organisations and around 15,000 experts. It is a leading provider of conservation data, assessments and analysis. Its broad membership enables the IUCN to fill the role of incubator and trusted repository of best practices, tools and international standards.

The IUCN provides a neutral space in which diverse stakeholders including governments, NGOs, scientists, businesses, local communities, indigenous peoples’ organisations and others can work together to forge and implement solutions to environmental challenges and achieve sustainable development.

Working with many partners and supporters, the IUCN implements a large and diverse portfolio of conservation projects worldwide. Combining the latest science with the traditional knowledge of local communities, these projects work to reverse habitat loss, restore ecosystems and improve people’s well-being.

[www.iucn.org](http://www.iucn.org)

[https://twitter.com/IUCN/](https://twitter.com/IUCN/)

BMM received an environmental authorization for its Gamsberg Mining Project (Gamsberg) in terms of section 24 of the National Environmental Management Act, 107 of 1998, as amended, from the then Northern Cape Department of Environment and Nature Conservation, now known as DAERL, on 13 August 2013, with reference numbers: NC/BA/NAM/KHA/AGG/2012 and NCP/EIA/0000155/2012 (Gamsberg EA). The Gamsberg EA was subsequently amended on 1 December 2014 and 2 December 2014.

Conditions 50 to 60 of the Gamsberg EA sets out the special biodiversity offset conditions, which required BMM to, among other things, secure in perpetuity, through one or more of the mechanisms provided for in section 20 or 23 of the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act, 57 of 2003, as amended (NEMPAA), areas and/or portions of properties which individually or collectively comprise at the least the following areas of sustainably intact habitat that house the following vegetation types:

Condition 57 of the Gamsberg EA also required BMM to enter into a legal agreement with the DAERL in order to regulate the manner in which the Offset obligations are discharged and managed. The BOA was accordingly entered into between DAERL and BMM on 16 October 2014.

It is a requirement under the Gamsberg EA, and under clause 14.7 of the BOA, for an independent review (IR) of the implementation of the BOA to be undertaken by an independent auditor or team of independent auditors every five years, with the first review to be undertaken upon the expiry of the five year period - calculated from the date of signature of the BOA, being 16 October 2014.

The first IR was conducted over the period of September to November 2019 by an independent auditor. The draft report prepared by the independent auditor following the initial IR (published in November 2019) (Draft Report), highlighted substantial implementation challenges as well as differences between BMM and DAERL (collectively, the Parties) regarding the interpretation of the BOA.

In this context, the Parties, under the guidance of the steering committee established in terms of clause 12 of the BOA (SC), required further assistance from the independent auditor to assist the Parties in better understanding the compliance related findings, the implementation challenges, as well as the interpretational difficulties that were identified in the Draft Report. The Parties also required the independent auditor to undertake a follow up/closing review which was completed in May 2020. The first and follow up review, are both regarded by the Parties as the “First Review”. A copy of the First Review report will be provided to the independent auditor upon appointment.

The Parties further agreed for the second review to be conducted in 2022 (Second Review), two years earlier than required in terms of the BOA, as per the recommendations of the First Independent Review. The Second Review occurred between October 2022 and February 2023. The final report in respect of the Second Review was published in February 2023. Several recommendations to the SC were made in the Second Review in respect of, *inter alia*,improving and/or enhancing the implementation of the Offset.

In the second review, one of the recommendations called to consider conducting an independent review in 2024 once the Second Time Period has lapsed. That Second Time Period was further extended of a year (to 1 March 2025) and it was therefore decided by the parties to have the third independent review after the 1 March 2025 deadline.

The purpose of this RFP is to appoint a suitable qualified independent auditor or team of auditors to conduct the third independent review of the BOA.

2.1. During the course of this procurement, i.e. from the publication of this RfP to the award of a contract, you may not discuss this procurement with any IUCN employee or representative other than the following contact. You must address all correspondence and questions to the contact, including your Proposal.

IUCN Contact tenders.sa@iucn.org

3.1. This timetable is indicative and may be changed by IUCN at any time. If IUCN decides that changes to any of the deadlines are necessary, we will publish this on our website and contact you directly if you have indicated your interest in this procurement (see Section 3.2).

4.1. Your Proposal must consist of the following four separate documents:

 Signed Declaration of Undertaking (see Attachment 2)

 Pre-Qualification Information (see Section 4.3 below)

 Technical Proposal (see Section 4.4 below)

 Financial Proposal (see Section 4.5 below)

Proposals must be prepared in English.

4.2. Your Proposal must be submitted by email to the IUCN Contact (see Section 2). The subject heading of the email shall be \[RfP Reference – BMM South Africa\]. The bidder name is the name of the company/organisation on whose behalf you are submitting the Proposal, or your own surname if you are bidding as a self-employed consultant. Your Proposal must be submitted in PDF format. You may submit multiple emails suitably annotated, e.g. Email 1 of 3, if attached files are too large to suit a single email transmission. You may not submit your Proposal by uploading it to a file-sharing tool.

Please DO NOT email the password before the deadline for Proposal submission.

IUCN will firstly check your Proposal for completeness. Incomplete Proposals will not be considered further.

Only Proposals that meet all of the pre-qualification criteria will be evaluated.

6.1. IUCN is using the Open Procedure for this procurement. This means that the contracting opportunity is published on IUCN’s website and open to all interested parties to take part, subject to the conditions in Section 7 below.

6.2. You are welcome to ask questions or seek clarification regarding this procurement. Please email the IUCN Contact (see Section 2), taking note of the deadline for submission of questions in Section 3.1.

6.3. All Proposals must be received by the submission deadline in Section 3.1 above. Late Proposals will not be considered. All Proposals received by the submission deadline will be evaluated by a team of three or more evaluators in accordance with the evaluation criteria stated in this RfP. No other criteria will be used to evaluate Proposals. The contract will be awarded to the bidder whose Proposal received the highest Total Score. IUCN does, however, reserve the right to cancel the procurement and not award a contract at all.

6.4. IUCN will contact the bidder with the highest-scoring Proposal to finalise the contract. We will contact unsuccessful bidders after the contract has been awarded and provide detailed feedback. The timetable in Section 3.1 gives an estimate of when we expect to have completed the contract award, but this date may change depending on how long the evaluation of Proposals takes.

8.1. IUCN follows the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The information you submit to IUCN as part of this procurement will be treated as confidential and shared only as required to evaluate your Proposal in line with the procedure explained in this RfP, and for the maintenance of a clear audit trail. For audit purposes, IUCN is required to retain your Proposal in its entirety for 10 years after then end of the resulting contract and make this available to internal and external auditors and donors as and when requested.

8.2. In the Declaration of Undertaking (Attachment 2) you need to give IUCN express permission to use the information you submit in this way, including personal data that forms part of your Proposal. Where you include personal data of your employees (e.g. CVs) in your Proposal, you need to have written permission from those individuals to share this information with IUCN, and for IUCN to use this information as indicated in 8.1. Without these permissions, IUCN will not be able to consider your Proposal.

If you have a complaint or concern regarding the propriety of how a competitive process is or has been executed, then please contact procurement@iucn.org. Such complaints or concerns will be treated as confidential and are not considered in breach of the above restrictions on communication (Section 2.1).

The contract will be based on IUCN’s template in Attachment 3, the terms of which are not negotiable. They may, however, be amended by IUCN to reflect particular requirements from the donor funding this particular procurement.

Attachment 1 Specification of Requirements / Terms of Reference

Attachment 2 Declaration of Undertaking (select 2a for companies or 2b for self-employed as applicable to you)

Attachment 3 Contract Template

1.1. A detailed description of the services and/or goods to be provided can be found in Attachment 1.

The independent auditor must have the following skills, education and experience as a minimum:

7.1. To participate in this procurement, you are required to submit a Proposal, which fully complies with the instructions in this RfP and the Attachments.

7.1.1. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have submitted a complete and fully compliant Proposal.

7.1.2. Any incomplete or incorrectly completed Proposal submission may be deemed non-compliant, and as a result you may be unable to proceed further in the procurement process.

7.1.3. IUCN will query any obvious clerical errors in your Proposal and may, at IUCN’s sole discretion, allow you to correct these, but only if doing so could not be perceived as giving you an unfair advantage.

7.2. In order to participate in this procurement, you must meet the following conditions:

7.3. You must complete and sign the Declaration of Undertaking (see Attachment 2).

7.4. If you are participating in this procurement as a member of a joint venture, or are using sub-contractors, submit a separate Declaration of Undertaking for each member of the joint venture and sub-contractor, and be clear in your Proposal which parts of the goods/services are provided by each partner or sub-contractor.

7.5. Each bidder shall submit only one Proposal, either individually or as a partner in a joint venture. In case of joint venture, one company shall not be allowed to participate in two different joint ventures in the same procurement nor shall a company be allowed to submit a Proposal both on its behalf and as part of a joint venture for the same procurement. A bidder who submits or participates in more than one Proposal (other than as a subcontractor or in cases of alternatives that have been permitted or requested) shall cause all the Proposals with the bidder’s participation to be disqualified.

7.6. By taking part in this procurement, you accept the conditions set out in this RfP, including the following:

The table below summarises the chronological order of deliverables and indicates milestones at which the IUCN will pay the independent auditor.