Green Public Procurement is a process to purchase or contract goods and services by governments, authorities and public entities, where both environmental and technical and economic aspects are assessed. In Europe, the public sector generates annual expenditure of nearly EUR 2 billion, which is equivalent to around 19% of the GDP of the European Union. In this context, the integration of innovative and green procurement criteria by all European public administrations will help to consolidate a more competitive and environmentally responsible economy. The European Commission considers green procurement as a strategic instrument to achieve its environmental goals.
BenefitsDescargar Including the green variable in public procurement benefits the public sector, the private sector and society overall. Benefits for the public sector Makes the economic resources more transparent and efficientAllows assumed environmental goals to be achieved and environmental impacts to be reduced Fosters economic savings by considering life cycle costs Improves the public image and reflects the exemplary nature towards private consumers Benefits for the private sector Offers incentives to industry to innovate and be more competitive;Drives innovation in products and services Strengthens the local economy Helps to establish environmental standards for products and services Benefits for society Reduces the price of environmental technologies and products.Improves the quality of life of the general public by cutting environmental impacts. Establishes a link between entrepreneurship and employment Increases environmental awareness
Trend Report The Ihobe Green Procurement Unit produces trend reports which cover the main developments and the most important measures in each year regarding green public procurement in the Basque Country, in Europe and in other benchmark regions. Those reports seek to disseminate, communicate and showcase how the inclusion of environmental clauses in public procurement has real benefits and is standard practice in the public sector internationally.
Signing up to the programme The Programme is of an open participatory nature and encourages the voluntary signing up to the programme of all Basque public authorities that wish to be committed to green public procurement. There are the following requirements to sign up to and take part in the Programme: Being an entity belonging to the Basque public sector.The adherence agreement must be signed by the entity A person in charge of heading and coordinating green public procurement in the entity has to be appointed.
Green Procurement Programme in the Basque Country In 2016, the Basque Government approved the “Green Public Procurement Programme of the Basque Country 2020”, which establishes the necessary framework to encourage the Basque Public Administration to integrate environmental criteria in its procurement processes. GoalsTo progress towards the institutionalisation of environmentally responsible procurement in the public sector of the Basque Country.This involves: Appointing a person in charge of heading and coordinating green public procurement in the entity Setting up an annual work plan Analysing and integrating green public procurement in the procedures and tools existing in the administration Achieving a degree of greening in public procurement of 50% by 2020. This goal will be calculated with regard to the tenders for prioritized product and service groups in the Programme and will be measured both in economic volume and in number of tenders. All the participating authorities aim to achieve by 2018 at least 50% greening procurement for a total of 10 product groups considered to be priority and 50% for 20 groups by 2020. Descargar
Environmental criteria of products and servicesThis section considers the categories of products and services that are priority for the European Commission, along with the green public procurement criteria applicable in each of them. Each category contains three stringency levels that must be selected according to the specific circumstances of each case. The defined criteria in each of the product and service categories were previously agreed by Ihobe, the technical secretariat of the "Green Procurement and Contracting Program of Basque Country 2030" and the suppliers of each sector.Before including any environment requirement from this list in the public tendering specifications, we recommend you take the following into account: Strict legal compliance is not sufficient for a specific purchase to acquire the green public procurement dimension.The environmental clauses will always be related to the purpose of the contract. Special attention will need to be paid to any mandatory environmental clauses. A prior assessment of these environmental clauses is also required to check if they are really effective on the market coming under the procurement process. Quantifiable and objective criteria need to be incorporated in that process.
Requesting advice Ihobe offers an advisory service to the public sector of the Basque Autonomous Community on how to include environmental clauses in the tendering processes and how to subsequently proceed to assess the submitted bids. The advisory service is on an individual and customised basis and meets the demands and needs of the authority in question. Please send an email to compra.verde@ihobe.eus to request this service. The advisory service offers: Proposal on how to include environmental clauses in the specifications or in the direct procurement process.Review of the greening specifications from the legal and technical perspective. Dealing with queries in the assessment process Dealing with queries or questions that arise in the tendering process (product labelling, including life cycle costs, etc.).
Circular Economy, Climate change, Ecodesign, Environment, Green procurement, Local Sustainability Save 04/03/2022 Circular Economy, Climate change, Ecodesign, Environment, Green procurement, Local Sustainability Alexander Boto unveils the Basque Country’s green transition at the EuroFound Foundation Forum 2022 Under the theme of “Recovery and resilience in the EU – Back to the Future?”, the EuroFound Foundation Forum yesterday brought together 1,000 policymakers, employer and worker representatives, experts and academia. The event, with the backing of the Irish government, discussed the role of the European Union and governments to ensure equality, inclusion and social cohesion in Europe’s just, green and sustainable transition.