_This article is written by Delfina Curi, Sustainable Economy and Procurement Officer, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability and Jon Jonoski, Communications and Member Relations Officer, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability _

  • The problem: Public authorities miss out on social and environmental gains by not implementing sustainable procurement practices.
  • Why it matters: 14% of the European Union’s GDP is used for public procurement. It’s a tool that can be used much more to achieve sustainable policy goals.
  • The solution: Public procurers should include social and environmental criteria in their tender.

Sustainable public procurement is used to ensure that purchases reflect policy objectives related to resource efficiency, climate change, social responsibility and economic resilience. In this process, the goal is to achieve a balance within the three pillars of sustainable development: environmental, social, and economic. It is about driving behavioural and market change by governments taking the lead and showing others what can be done.

As an example of this, when procuring food and catering, some public administrations are considering environmental sustainability by reducing the use of plastic and the promotion of circular waste management, as well as requiring the use of organic and seasonal fruits and vegetables. In the procurement of transport, some public administrations are promoting the installation of solar charging stations, while other ones are procuring hybrid buses for public transport and requiring the use of zero-emission or fossil fuel free vehicles.

First steps to sustainable procurement

To implement sustainable procurement, public administrations are advised to set a step-by-step approach: set clear targets, priorities and timeframes; assess the actual needs; check what the scope of the procurement is, such as for one department or the whole organisation. Other strategies may include identifying the main environmental impacts that have to be considered, and giving the tender a green title so it immediately conveys that the environmental performance of the product or service will be a key part of the contract. In addition, by searching among existing contracts, it is possible to find that some sustainability criteria are already being applied. Finally, having clear targets helps to assess progress and to communicate your intentions within the organisation and to the general public.

By cooperating and sharing information on, for example, environmental and social criteria used in tenders, public buyers can see how others have applied them and how they have achieved their sustainability goals.

Another point to consider is what type of procurement procedure the administration should choose. In a tender, the public administration can apply environmental, social and innovation criteria linked to the subject matter and award of the contract, compliance with the International Labour Organization (ILO) core conventions, having more detailed rules on the use of life cycle costing, and the use of environmental and social labels. To decide which procedure to use, public administrations can conduct open market consultations in order to apply ambitious environmental requirements, or consider innovative solutions relatively new to the market.

Challenges to implementation

Public organisations sometimes face an uphill battle when trying to introduce sustainable procurement practices. Therefore, it is important:

  • To show the benefits of it (e.g. life cycle costing is both good for the environment and leads to long-term financial gains).
  • To highlight that using existing policy goals which can be linked to sustainability.
  • To have some good practice examples from other public administrations.

By cooperating and sharing information on, for example, environmental and social criteria used in tenders, public buyers can see how others have applied them and how they have achieved their sustainability goals.

Looking into best practices can also contribute to knowledge and capacity building. To help public buyers with this, the European Commission (EC) recently published the report “Making Socially Responsible Public Procurement Work. 71 Good Practice Cases”. The report, co-written by ICLEI, showcases 71 examples of how public procurers have achieved social benefits in practice. The case studies demonstrate correct bidding procedures and effective policies, and act as inspiration – both for procurers and operators in the social economy – with the aim to stimulate replication across Europe and beyond. It is also important to ensure that staff responsible for sustainable procurement have the appropriate practical skills, as well as knowledge and access to relevant data and information. External experts can be brought in to train those in charge of procuring. ICLEI offers support in this area, for example through the development of the GPP Training toolkit.

Innovation procurement

Once sustainable procurement has become more integrated in an organisation, public buyers can also consider more innovative procurement processes, such as pre-commercial procurement (PCP), or public procurement of innovation (PPI), which allow them to purchase innovative solutions that may not yet be market-ready. A good example of this is the EU funded project AI4Cities where six European cities are going through a PCP process to find AI-based solutions that can reduce the carbon emissions in their energy and mobility domains.

Further information

Local authorities interested in sustainable procurement are always welcome to approach ICLEI. ICLEI has been supporting public authorities to use their public spending to achieve social and environmental objectives since 1996. Through projects and flagship networks, such as the Procura+ European Sustainable Procurement Network and the Global Lead City Network on Sustainable Procurement, ICLEI provides professional information, advice, networking opportunities, training and tools to public authorities wanting to implement better, more cost effective sustainability and innovation procurement practices.

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