Request for proposals for services as the 2024 Urban Benchmark research provider

The World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) aims to drive the private sector’s engagement in the SDGs through its benchmarks, envisioning a future where companies, investors, governments, civil society and individuals can quickly and easily compare businesses and motivate a ‘race to the top’. WBA is a global non-profit organisation with most colleagues based in Amsterdam and a second office in London. 

WBA procurement rules require a public tender for contracts above a certain size. This Request for Proposal (RFP) sets out the draft scope of work outlining the research provider support required to deliver the Urban Benchmark. The first part consists of delivering draft assessments for approximately 300 companies across 24 indicators and a total of 114 scoring elements introduced in the Urban Benchmark Methodology. 

The research provider is not expected to create or revise the methodology, but to assess companies using the existing Urban Benchmark methodology and indicators. The key deliverables will be to draft company assessments, after which WBA’s core staff will finalise, following WBA-led engagement with companies. WBA will also be responsible for carrying out any analysis and producing insights found as a result of the assessments. 

Interested parties (‘you’) are invited to bid for these scopes of work. This RFP is provided to enable you to develop initial cost estimates and options to deliver the scope(s) and as such should not be viewed as any form of agreement between you and WBA. 

Expectations of the proposal

We expect that your proposal will, first and foremost, estimate the personnel and financial resources required to deliver the Urban Benchmark research in line with the expectations and draft deliverables listed herein. Furthermore, WBA anticipates that you will be able to demonstrate how you will deliver in the key areas specified below:  

• Researcher quality (interpreting large volumes of written data and scoring companies against the Urban methodology).  
• Familiarity with select urban development issues, as covered by the urban methodology. These include topics pertaining to company governance, participation and stakeholder partnership, tenure rights, culture heritage, affordability, universal access, discrimination, employment and local economy, noise, air and water pollution, water withdrawal, waste minimisation, active mobility, greenhouse gas emission, energy efficiency, natural ecosystem protection, natural disaster risk reduction and emergency response.  
• Research intensity (being able to execute in-depth research of 300 companies within condensed timeframes).  
• Should you plan to use tools to automate parts of the research process, the proposal should also include the estimated accuracy of the tool, and the quality checks to be implemented to ensure quality of data being collected by it. 
• Employee retention (WBA would like to see a staffing plan including how staff changes will be handled throughout the project. We are interested in your approach to retaining people, supported by 2022 and 2023 analyst retention rates). 

WBA expects that proposals will detail the tasks covered in the project period from the end of February to mid-June (see Project Timeline section for more details) and costs involved, including day-rates for staff of various seniorities, breakdown for any sub-contracting, costs for using any proprietary software/ databases and an eventual ‘cost-per researched-company’.

Responses to this RFP should be sent to b.dyca@worldbenchmarkingalliance.org by 19th February 2024, and requests for clarifications may be sent to the same address beforehand. The tendering process will be conducted in line with the WBA Procurement Policy 2018-2022.