The role of UNEP in general is to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations. UNEP has been active in the promotion of Sustainable Public Procurement at national, regional and global levels since 2005.

UNEP has been active in the promotion of Sustainable Public Procurement at national, regional and global levels since 2005.

Highlights

• Co-lead of the One Planet SPP Programme since its inception in 2014
• Global supporter of sustainable public procurement through tools and guidance
• Since 2009, UNEP has assisted over 20 national governments in the development and implementation of SPP policies through its SPP Implementation Guidelines. See also Terms of references/questionnaires.
• UNEP, as custodian to the SDG 12.7 target, has developed the methodology for the calculation of indicator 12.7.1 and is collecting contributions and data from national and sub-national governments. See Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12.7.1 Indicator.
• Global SPP Review: UNEP reviews periodically the state of SPP implementation at world level. Challenges and trends are also analyzed in the reports. Since 2017, supplementary factsheets describe the progress of the most advanced countries. See 2013 and 2017 Global SPP Review.

Useful Resources

• 2017 Global Review of Sustainable Public Procurement
• Factsheets on sustainable public procurement in national governments (2017)
• Comparative Analysis of Green Public Procurement and Ecolabelling in China, Japan, Thailand and the Republic of Korea: Lessons Learned and Common Success Factors (2017)
• A Sampling of Successes in Green Public Procurement: Case Studies of Green Public Procurement Implementation in Asia-Pacific Countries (2017)
• 10YFP SPP Programme Principles of Sustainable Public Procurement (2015)
• Measuring and Communicating the Benefits of Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP): Baseline Review and Development of a Guidance Framework (2015)
• Using Product-Service Systems to Enhance Sustainable Public Procurement (2015)
• Sustainability of Supply Chains and Sustainable Public Procurement (2014)
• The Impacts of Sustainable Public Procurement: Eight Illustrative Case Studies (2013)
• Sustainable Public Procurement: A Global Review 2013
• Sustainable Public Procurement Implementation Guidelines (2012)

SPP Publications UNEP and One Planet Network

• Monitoring SPP implementation - Recommendations and case studies (2016)
• Report on Measuring and Communicating the Benefits of SPP (2016)
• OECD compendium of best GPP practices (English)
• Technical Report on Using Product-Service Systems to Enhance Sustainable Public Procurement
• Promoting the Participation of Small and Medium Size Enterprises in Green Public Procurement
• Sustainability of supply chains: a Pre-study (2014) (Lead: SEMCO)
• Procurement of pharmaceuticals in an environmental context and its inclusion into the CSR Compass (lead: Swedish Environmental Protection Agency)
• The list of UNEP SPP projects and main outputs can be found here.

Central to CLES’s wider work around local wealth building is the work around public procurement. For the last ten years CLES have been undertaking work to address three long-term frustrations associated with public procurement:

1. Understanding where public procurement spend goes in geographic, sectoral and business type terms;
2. Shifting the behaviour of procurement practitioners so they think about not only price in procurement but also addressing social and environmental challenges;
3. Influencing suppliers to deliver more than just a good or service but also contribute towards a wider set of outcomes.

CLES got involved in procurement because we recognise the intrinsic link to economic development; procurement can be used as a lever to deliver local economic and social change.

CLES’ work over the last ten years has sought to address the challenges outlined above. We have designed methodologies and tools for places to understand where their procurement spend goes and its wider impact. We have influenced the behaviour of commissioners, procurers and economic development practitioners so they think about procurement as a cycle and so they consider wider issues. And we have encouraged suppliers to deliver more through procurement in the form of jobs and training opportunities, for example.

CLES works with places in the long term to shift the way in which they think about public procurement:
We have been working with Manchester City Council for the last ten years to measure their impact and to develop new approaches to public procurement. We have supported increases in spend in the local economy and in introducing social value weighting into the tender process.

We have been working with Preston City Council and six other ‘Anchor Institutions’ for the last five years to collectively understand their procurement spend and harness their potential to deliver wider local economic, social and environmental outcomes.

We have been working as part of the European Union’s URBACT Programme to provides expertise to the Procure Network which is seeking to shift procurement policies and practices across 11 cities in Europe.

CLES brings intrinsic knowledge to the Procura+ Network as to how procurement can be used as a lever to address economic and social challenges.

We adopt an inclusive and holistic approach to foster sustainable consumption and production with expertise in the areas of Products and Services, Cities & Infrastructure, Policy, Lifestyles & Behaviour and Business & Entrepreneurship. Within these areas, both the think and do tank services are offered in collaboration with our partner organizations worldwide.

Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) is one main field of our expertise. We believe that Public Procurement can be a major lever to implement sustainable solutions and achieve cost savings for the public hand at the same time. Measurement and monetisation of positive and negative sustainability impacts is key to create and communicate attractive business cases to decision makers and procurers.We are undertaking various projects and programmes to mainstream SPP at national and regional governments around the world.

In the following some examples of our work and the impact we have created:

We engaged with the Royal Government of Bhutan, its Royal Institute of Management and other national stakeholders on the implementation of Green Public Procurement (GPP) at the national level in Bhutan in the scope of a project funded by European Commission through its Switch Asia Program. We raised awareness of high-level policy makers of Bhutan towards the benefits of Green Public Procurement and how to adopt value for money principle when undertaking procurement. We also trained Bhutanese public procurers on GPP and its related technical and management approaches. Trainings were imparted on topics including life cycle thinking, life cycle costing, sustainable supply chain management, procurement cycle and other topics of practical importance for GPP implementation in Bhutan. Our training materials are now being used as input for Master classes on GPP at the Royal Institute of Management.

We also worked to bring SPP to Chinese urban administrations through the project “Sustainable Public Procurement in Urban Administrations in China (SuPP-Urb)”. Three Chinese cities of Qinhuangdao (Hebei Province), Lanzhou (Gansu Province) and Tianjin piloted SPP implementation. Relying on Chinese and European examples each pilot city composed an SPP action plan to be implemented within their administration. Project focussed its efforts on enhancing environmental and social performance of office equipment and consumables purchased by above city administrations.

In addition, we work with the Sustainable Procurement Office of the Ministry of Federal Affairs, Europe and the Media in NRW region of Germany. We enable evaluation of sustainability risks and opportunities of Sustainable Public Procurement based on value chain analyses. Currently the pilot study of sustainability risks / opportunities of toys chain is being conducted. The project will deliver a concept to replicate the evaluation strategy to other product groups at the federal level.

Some examples of projects involving Copper8 include:

Sustainable redevelopment

An innovative European tendering process was developed for Alliander in which collaboration was stimulated between a handful of disciplines.

Circular furniture procurement

There is much talk about circular procurement, but how do you put together such a tender? Alliander has created a tender for furniture to maximize the ambitions of the organization in terms of the circular economy.

City of Amsterdam: sustainable and circular procurement

The City of Amsterdam has an ambitious sustainability policy and aims to accelerate sustainable procurement to give it substance. Copper8 examined five product groups and developed a ‘choice card’, on the basis of which buyers and internal clients can make choices that are as ambitious as possible.

Circular economy strategy

A big Dutch contractor asked us to support them in their strategy in the field of sustainability. As experienced strategy consultants, we know better than anyone that it is difficult to make a strategy process take root, so we took a different approach.

Ecosistemi has supported numerous public authorities in carrying out the following activities:

• The elaboration of action plans for GPP for the Province of Cremona, Province of Cagliari, Province of Rome, Region Sardegna and Region Puglia
• Supporting the development of environmental criteria in public tenders for the Region Lazio, Province of Rome and for regional and local public bodies in Region Sardinia
• Preparing guidelines for GPP implementation for the Italian Ministry of Environment, Land and Sea Protection, Municipality of Pisa and Province of Cremona.

Ecosistemi has designed and implemented training courses on GPP for many Italian public authorities, including: Consip-National Purchasing Agency, Province of Cremona, Regional Agency of Environmental Protection of Lazio, Municipality of Arezzo, Formez, Region Marche, Region Lombardia, Region Sardinia and Region Sicily. It has assisted public organisations in the definition and implementation of communication plans that target enterprises and potential suppliers by, for example:

• Supporting Region Sardinia in developing sectoral strategies for the implementation of green public procurement that included actions for the involvement and consultations of suppliers;
• Supporting the Municipality of Turin in the realisation of market analysis and engagement within the INNOCAT project.

Since 2005, Ecosistemi was appointed the Technical Secretary of the National Working Group on GPP for Local Agenda 21 where it delivered the Life+ project GPPinfoNET, whereby 6 regional GPP networks were created in Italy and another 3 in Europe (Romania, Poland and Spain). Several of these regional networks focus on the use of GPP as a tool for CO2 reduction and promotion of energy efficiency.

Ecosistemi is the co-organiser of the Green Purchasing International Forum "CompraVerde - BuyGreen", that takes place every year, in Rome since 2014. Since its launch, Ecosistemi has led a number of initiatives, such as a series of GPP training seminars known as “GPP from A to Z”, the CompraVerde Award for the best GPP policy and the best green tender, and the Green Contact which is a contact point set up between suppliers and consumers. The event also became the first Italian Forum to obtain the certification for the sustainable management of events in 2009 which is annually maintained and updated in accordance with the ISO20121 standard.

In 2010 Ecosistemi signed an agreement to become the Italian national partner of ICLEI for the Procura+ Campaign. Two Italian local authorities are among Procura+ participants, the Municipality of Cremona and the Province of Rome (stand 2014).

Over the years, adhesions to the Procura+ Campaign by Italian local authorities have decreased, mainly given to the fact that the Italian public administration system is going through a very difficult period characterised by significant financial cuts and administrative changes that make difficult any kind of “out of the ordinary” investment.

Ecosistemi believes that motivation for participating in the Procura+ Campaign for Italian public authorities that are seriously engaged in the implementation of GPP policies shall mainly come from access to EU projects partnerships and visibility at EU level.

Other relevant work

• Provision of support and training at national level for the spread of low carbon procurement practices within the project GPP2020 coordinated by ICLEI;
• Coordination of working groups for the establishment of minimum environmental criteria in the food and buildings sector within the National Action Plan for Green Public Procurement;
• Promotion of Procura+ Campaign at Forum CompraVerde-BuyGreen (Milan, 5-6 December 2012) with informative material at Ecosistemi’s desk, publication of Procura+ page on the event catalogue, logos and link to ICLEI and Procura+ on the event website (www.forumcompraverde.it).

During the last decades the global electronics industry has become one of the largest in the global economy. There are an estimated 18 million electronics workers who generate 25% of global trade in manufactured goods. Electronics brands are some of the most valuable companies in the world. As of 2016, Foxconn, an electronics contract manufacturing company, is the world's second largest private employer.

Unfortunately, workers have helped shoulder the cost of industry growth.

The Electronics Watch solution
Electronics Watch believes that the public sector, in its role as consumer, can help to change this picture.  Public sector organisations value social responsibility and sustainability along with transparency and fair competition.   They are large consumers of ICT hardware such as portable and desktop computers, printers, display screens, and media storage, and purchase these products through long-term contracts. They can, therefore, create market opportunities for companies that commit to respect labour rights and safety standards in global supply chains, and hold them accountable for any failure to do so.

Electronics Watch organises public sector buyers and gives them the essential tools to create effective market demand for decent working conditions in their ICT hardware supply chains.  Public sector affiliate members pool resources through Electronics Watch to obtain reliable intelligence about working conditions at significantly reduced cost. They insert the Electronics Watch Contract Conditions in ICT hardware contracts, requiring their contractors to exercise due diligence to achieve respect for labour rights and safety standards in factories that assemble or make the components of the goods they purchase.  When public sector buyers in many countries take action together, based on the same supply chain intelligence and the same enforceable contract requirements, working conditions can improve.

The Centre for Sustainable Business Development (CENDES) is a department within LNEG whose aim is to be a landmark on Sustainable Development by promoting a more balanced society in economical, environmental and social terms. CENDES is an agent for the adoption of eco-efficiency and sustainable principles in business global management, the creation of new competences for sustainability, the stimulation of (eco) innovation, the integration of social aspects and the promotion of multi-stakeholders dialogue.

LNEG has implemented several projects and activities since 2003, becoming a leader organisation on sustainable procurement. The main activities focus on:

• Guidance on criteria applied to sustainable procurement
• Training public authorities and other organisations
• Implementation of green public procurement into European projects
• Defining national policies
• Researching new methodologies
• Awareness raising through dissemination materials and workshops

Two training activities on SPP were carried out in Portugal lately: one took place on 27th November 2013 in ISEP, Porto, integrated in the 6th meeting of the Procura+Portugal network and another on 9th April 2014, as part of the 7th meeting of the network.

One of the outputs of the Building SPP is a set of recommendations to the national procurement strategies, aiming to favour and improve SPP implementation in Portugal and Greece. The final conference of the Building SPP project has just taken place on 16th September 2014. The conference was held in Lisbon and was a major national event about sustainable procurement. Topics such as networking, green and social criteria, market involvement and sustainable procurement strategies were addressed.

The Latvian Sustainable Procurement Association (LSPA) promotes an inclusive and holistic approach to fostering sustainable consumption and production, specializing in areas such as products and services, cities and infrastructure, policy, lifestyles and behavior, as well as entrepreneurship. We work to integrate environmental requirements, life cycle approaches, climate change considerations, and social criteria into procurement processes. In these areas, we offer training and practical services.

Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) is one of our main specializations. We believe that public procurement can be a critical tool for implementing sustainable solutions while also achieving cost savings in the public sector. Measuring and monetizing the positive and negative impacts of sustainability are essential for creating compelling business cases and communicating them to decision-makers and procurement professionals. We implement various projects and programs to promote SPP at national and regional levels.

Some examples of our work and the impact we have made:

• We collaborate with the Government of Latvia and other national partners to advance the development of Green Public Procurement (GPP) at the state level. As part of these initiatives, we develop training programs for procurement specialists on GPP/SPP, covering topics such as life cycle thinking, life cycle costing, sustainable supply chain management, and the procurement cycle.
• We promote sustainable public procurement within Latvian municipalities to improve environmental and social performance.
• We work with educational institutions to develop training materials and conduct training on GPP, fostering the understanding and skills of future professionals in implementing sustainable procurement.
• Additionally, we collaborate with various partners to assess the risks and opportunities of sustainable public procurement.

Our team consists of experienced experts in sustainable procurement and sustainable development. The organization's leadership is closely connected to the extensive experience of our chairperson in addressing GPP issues, including the development of regulatory frameworks, providing practical consultations, as well as conducting significant scientific research and publications in this field. We are committed to ensuring that sustainable procurement principles are implemented at all levels and that our knowledge and expertise are utilized to promote sustainable development in Latvia.