In July 2010, the European Commission presented a proposal to establish ambitious objectives for green public procurement. The Communication is aimed to sketch the main directions in reducing the environmental impact caused by public consumption and implementing the green public procurement to stimulate innovation in technology, products and eco-friendly services.
The green public procurement is a process that makes public purchasers consider the environment factors when buying products, services or works in order to reduce the environment and health impact.
Currently, we are witnessing many activities aimed to promote and use sustainable products and consumption. The European Community is struggling to implement sustainable development projects. Therefore, green procurement should represent a priority of all institutions, which, in turn, should raise the citizens’ awareness on environment protection.
Every year, the European public authorities spend the equivalent of 16% of EU’s Gross Domestic Product on product procurement, such as office tools, construction and transport vehicle components,
services, such as building maintenance services, transport services, cleaning and catering services and works. A more sustainable use of natural resources and raw materials would serve the environment and the entire economic sector, thus creating the opportunity of generating green economies.
Several European countries holding the top positions in green public procurement have already established ambitious objectives. For example, the Dutch Government plans to reach a 100% target in sustainable procurement, while in France, only 20% of the total number of vehicles annually bought by the Government for fleet renewal is planned to be non-polluting.
Under the circumstances, the Commission has established a preliminary set of joint criteria for green public procurement. These criteria are elaborated for groups of products and services in 10 sectors selected according to their importance in improvement opportunities for environment protection, public costs, potential offer impact. These sectors include constructions, food supply, transport and transport services, energy etc. When the purchaser wants to buy certain products, he can use contractual specifications to select the transport method that should be used in delivering goods. For example, in a contract for major works it might be specified that goods should be shipped to a railway station or specific river port. The mere fact that a bidder can have greater accessibility to the railway network or inland waterways than other bidder would make such a contract execution clause discriminatory, which is very important in contract conclusion.
As for the procurement using community funds, billion of euros are spent every year on regional development and economic and social cohesion. During 2007-2013, sustainable development is one of EU’s most stringent targets. Since green public procurement is an instrument that stimulates innovation and encourages undertakings to develop new environmentally enhanced products, EU allocates massive investments to research. Consequently, there are several financing programmes such as the seventh frame programme (PC7) that regroups EU’s research initiatives. Under the programme, EU’s financial participation exceeds EUR 50 Billion by 2013. While most funds would finance research activities that are irrelevant to green public procurement, the overall costs of the project could be subject to “an ecologisation”.
by Pamlea Luică
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