Green Procurement[fr][de] 

Public procurement refers to the buying by public authorities of goods, services or works. As these authorities are using tax payers money, there are national and European rules on public procurent in order to get the best value for money, prevent fraud or discrimination and ensure equal treatment of bidders.

Green public procurement (GPP) takes place when contracting authorities use environmental criteria when making choices on who to buy goods or services from. Examples: energy-efficient PCs or hydrogen buses for public transport.

Green public procurement got onto the political agenda because of the growing concern about sustainable development. As public procurement spending is worth about 16% of EU GDP, greening the public procurement rules at EU and national level could help sustantially at reducing unsustainable production and consumption patterns. It can also pull new environmental technologies (ETAP) into the market place.

EU Policy developments:

• On the basis of an interpretative communication from the Commission in July 2001, and two important cases before the Court of Justice (the "Helsinki Bus case" and the "Wienstrom case"), it came to be accepted that ecological criteria would be used for public procurements;
• In March 2004, the Council and the Parliament adopted two new public procurement directives, which included provisions as regards integration of environmental considerations into public procurement.
• More details on the legal framework  are available from the DG Environment webpages.

A 2005 study on Green Public Procurement  undertaken for DG environment has highlighted that there are seven countries (Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden and the UK) that are using more green criteria in their public procurements. 

The study also identified several barriers to green public procurement:

• perception that green products are more expensive;
• lack of knowledge about the environment and how to develop green criteria;
• lack of management support;
• lack of practical tools and information;
• lack of training for officers dealing with these public purchases.

One of the biggest obstacles for public purchasers is the lack of clear and reliable environmental criteria.

As green public procurement could contribute to more energy-efficiency, the issue also shows up in the Commission's Green paper on energy efficiency as one of the main policy options (public auhorities could buy more energy-efficient, less polluting vehicles for their public transport.

The European Council of Vinyl Manufacturers (ECVM) criticised in a 2005 paper that giving priority to environmental aspects only neglected other choices of products such as technical performances, safety and costs. It demanded sustainable public procurement instead of green public procurement.

For environmental NGOs,  the greening of public procurement legislation is not going far enough. They demanded that certain aspects of the legislation be amended to allow for the better inclusion of environmental considerations, e.g. by:

• allowing the total environmental impact of procurement to be considered, including the process and production methods involved.
• allowing external environmental costs and full life-cycle assessments to be taken into account in calculating the cost of the tender.
• awarding the tender to "the most advantageous offer" and not "the economically most advantageous tender for the contracting authorities".  
• allowing global considerations, such as climate change, that will have no direct effect on the contracting authority to be taken into account.