The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA) has launched a new course on implementing Sustainable Public Procurement. ESCWA developed this course in partnership with ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, aiming to improve the capacity of stakeholders in the Arab region to better deliver on the commitments of the 2030 Agenda.

The training material is drawn from the revised edition of ICLEI’s Procura+ Manual, which provides practical advice on integrating sustainability into procurement, and the 2014 European Union procurement directives. The Procura+ Manual aims to position sustainable procurement within current economic, political, and legal frameworks and provides information for public authorities and others wishing to understand and implement it.

The course is divided into five modules. Through the modules, participants will:

1. Understand the importance of adopting sustainable public procurement at a policy level and define its aspects.
2. Learn how to manage sustainable public procurement in your organization.
3. Understand the process of integrating sustainability and innovation in procurement under the 2014 Directives.
4. Learn about the concept of life cycle costing (LCC) regarding the costs of sustainable procurement and advice on how to keep costs down.
5. Have an overview of sustainable public procurement approaches for six key products, works and services.

Professionals interested in exploring these key concepts of sustainable procurement and real examples and practices on how to implement it within your organizations, can take this self-paced course for a clear overview of sustainable public procurement, its costs and benefits, and means of implementation.

The course can be accessed here

Procura+ participant Greater London Authority (GLA) has published a number of case studies on responsible public procurement. The case studies highlight GLA’s progress across five themes set out in its Responsible Procurement Policy: Improving supply chain diversity, Embedding fair and inclusive employment practices, Enabling skills, training and employment opportunities, Promoting ethical sourcing practices, Improving environmental sustainability.

GLA believes that the scale and diversity of its procurement gives it plenty of opportunity use it its purchasing power to help smaller business, improve working conditions for Londoners, address inequalities in skills and labour markets, protect labor and human rights in supply chains, and contribute to London’s goal to be a net-zero city by 2030.

Transport of London led for example a pilot to ring-fence contracts for smaller businesses and social enterprises, helping to support their growth and save public money. The Metropolitan Police Service explored how it could increase the amount of redundant ICT equipment that was refurbished and reused, aiming to promote digital inclusion and give London residents access to upcycled devices. The London Legacy Development Cooperation is including standard clauses in above-threshold contracts that oblige contractors to comply with the Modern Slavery Act and with a certified ethical labour scheme.

To learn more about these examples and look through the other case studies published by the GLA, click here.

The GLA Group is made up of Transport for London, London Fire Brigade, London Legacy Development Corporation, the Metropolitan Police Service, Mayor’s Office of Policing and Crime, and Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation. Together they procure around 9,5 billion pounds of goods and services annually.

The City of Utrecht (The Netherlands), the City of Malmö (Sweden), the City of Ghent (Belgium), and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy of the Netherlands are the four winners of the 2022 Procura+ Awards. The Awards were given out at the Procura+ Seminar, hosted by the Municipality of Schaerbeek (Belgium). The seminar, organised by ICLEI Europe and carried out in collaboration with the COACH project (in which ICLEI is a partner) aimed to showcase the key role of sustainable public procurement in the green transition, with a special focus on farm-to-to fork procurement.

The City of Utrecht won an Award in the category Sustainable Procurement of the Year, for applying far-reaching social and sustainable criteria in its food procurement to ensure sustainable, circular, high quality food products for its citizens, reduce packaging and residual flows, and minimise food waste. Additionally, it applied a very strong social angle to its tender, aiming for the most inclusive food choice and introducing a fixed minimum percentage of social return, thereby providing the possibility to even the most vulnerable people to be trained and worked. The Irish Prison Service, which conducted a tender for the removal and recycling or repurposing of discarded mattresses across all 12 of its prisons was a finalist in this category.

Three finalists competed in the newly established Circular Procurement of the Year category, highlighting the increasingly successful uptake of circular procurement projects throughout Europe. The City of Tampere (Finland), which used circular criteria to renovate one of its main streets, and the City of Quimper (France) which reused on-site materials as much as possible during the renovation of its railway station, saw the award go to the City of Malmö (Sweden). Through the Circular PP project, Malmö has piloted the procurement of “non-new furniture” for its city hall. The city has now replicated this circular approach to road and navigation signs. These include both signs that are used in public buildings and on streets. The municipality aims to reuse these signs as much as possible. When this is not possible, then the signs are sent back for reuse or redesign to the supplier.

Aiming to use locally renewable energy in its public buildings, the City of Ghent (Belgium), in cooperation with Vlaams Energiebedrijf – VEB (the Flemish Energy Company) - set up a virtual power purchase agreement (PPA) for electricity from renewable energy with a citizen energy cooperative. The tender requires the delivery of at least 500 MWh of renewable energy per year. It also requires that the production facility where the electricity is generated is at least half owned by a citizen energy community and that residents of Ghent can participate in the community and invest in the project. For this project Ghent and VEB received the Award in the Procurement Initiative of the Year category. The other finalist, the City of Copenhagen (Denmark) was recognised for it’s ambitious plans to increase the market availability and public procurement of fossil- and emission-free Non Road Mobile Machinery (NRMM).

Finally, The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy received the Award in the category Innovation Procurement of the Year for challenging the workspace hardware market with its IWR 2021 project. The project included in its scope all ICT hardware for the national offices and employees of the central government, applying sustainability and circularity criteria to all tenders in this category. In doing so, the project set a new standard in the field. For example, this was the first time an ICT tender requested CO2 footprints and carried out a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) calculation for all products. For its development of the Procurement Planning Platform (PPP), serving as a backbone for a strategic sourcing approach towards sustainability and innovation, the City of Lisbon (Portugal) was recognised as a finalist in this category.

More info about this year's Procura+ Award winners and finalists can be found on the Procura+ website.

The shortlisted candidates for the 2022 Procura+ Awards have been selected in all four categories: Circular Procurement of the Year, Innovation Procurement of the Year, Procurement Initiative of the Year and Sustainable Procurement of the Year. The Procura+ Awards are an intitiave of ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability.

The category ‘Circular Procurement of the Year’ recognizes outstanding circular economy applications in the public authority’s procurement. The shortlisted candidates are:

• The Procura+ Participant, City of Malmö (Sweden), for its application of the circular approach to road and navigation signs
• Ghent University Hospital (Belgium) for its effort in supplying and leasing more circular and sustainable work wear clothes
• The Hungarian Museum of Science, Technology And Transport (Hungary) for its circular and sustainable design of the museum’s new headquarters
• The Procura+ Participant, City of Tampere (Finland), for applying for the first time circular economy criteria in the public procurement of the design & build of the renovation of one of its main streets
• The City of Quimper (France), for the circular approach used in the renovation of the railway station

In the category ‘Innovation Procurement of the Year’, that recognises outstanding innovation of the procurement and the public authority as a launch customer, the shortlisted candidates are:

• The Procura+ Participant, Catalan Waste Agency (Spain), with its pilot projects for public procurement of innovation in selective municipal waste collection
• The City of Lisbon (Portugal), for developing a Procurement Planning Platform (PPP) as a backbone for a strategic sourcing approach towards sustainability and innovation
• Consip (Italy), with its strategic ICT procurement plan to promote digitalisation across the Italian public administrations
• The Ministry of Economic Affairs And Climate Policy (Netherlands), for its innovative and sustainable approach in the purchase of ICT, through the IWR2021 project

The category recognising outstanding processes and actions towards strategic, sustainable and innovation procurement, ‘Procurement Initiative of the Year’, has four shortlisted candidates:

• The Procura+ Participant, City of Copenhagen (Denmark), for promoting the initiative on Fossil and Emission free Non-Road Mobile Machinery (NRMM)
• The City of Porto (Portugal), for switching to a 100% certified renewable electric energy supply
• The Procura+ Participant, City of Ghent and VEB (Belgium), for their Virtual Power Purchase Agreement for the delivery of locally produced solar power and citizens engagement
• The Procura+ Participant, City of Stavanger (Norway), for using its purchasing power to ensure that human rights are respected along its suppliers’ value chains when procuring ICT
• Kerry County Council (Ireland), for implementing a Dynamic Purchasing System for Energy Efficiency Retrofitting Works

Finally, the shortlisted candidates for the ‘Sustainable Procurement of the Year’ category, which recognises outstanding environmental, social and economic impacts of procurement are:  

• The City of Lyon (France), for promoting a more sustainable food policy and system through the procurement of the catering and delivering service for Lyon’s primary schools 
• The City of Utrecht (Netherlands), for providing their citizens with the most sustainable and circular food choice, through their procurement of catering
• The Irish Prison Services (Ireland), for their sustainable and circular mattress recycling initiative 
• The Service Center Helsinki (Finland), for pushing sustainability criteria for work clothes 

ICLEI thanks all applicants for submitting their entry and encourage all shortlisted candidates and all applicants to keep up the good work. ICLEI will announce the finalists in summer. Winners will be announced during an Award Ceremony, taking place in Brussels, on 12 October, at the Procura+ Seminar. More information on how to register for the event will be shared in the upcoming weeks.

Find out more information about the shortlisted candidates here.

The jury members for the Procura+ Awards 2022 have been revealed. They are:

• Erika Bozzay, Senior Policy Adviser at the Infrastructure and Public Procurement Division, OECD
• Katharina Knapton-Vierlich, Head of Unit, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, European Commission
• Mark Hidson, Global Director ICLEI's Sustainable Procurement Centre
• Sarah O'Carroll, Cities Lead: Institutions, Governments & Cities, Ellen MacArthur Foundation

These four experienced procurement experts and policy makers will assess the economic, environmental, social, circular and innovative impacts of each application to decide on nominees in four categories. This year those are:

• Sustainable Procurement of the Year
• Innovation Procurement of the year
• Circular Procurement of the Year (new)
• Procurement Initiative of the year

Further good news is that interested applicants have more time to prepare and submit their candidacy for the 2022 edition of the Procura+ Awards. The application deadline has been extended to 30 April 2022. Apply now!

Winners of the awards will receive a unique trophy and will have ample opportunities to promote their winning work. Winners will be widely endorsed through a variety of ICLEI publications and communication channels. Furthermore, a case studies will be published and showcased on the Sustainable Procurement Platform and the Innovation Procurement Platform.

Participants in previous editions of the awards have highlighted that taking part in the Procura+ Awards helped them to benchmark themselves and to gain visibility for their work and achievements. For winners, it remains an excellent way to prove their commitment to sustainability and innovation, as well as to earn internal and external recognition.

Read about the 2021 Procura+ Award winners and runners up here.

What do the Province of Zeeland, the cities of Odense and Copenhagen, Santiago de Compostela City Council and the Murcia Health Service all have in common? If you guessed that they all won a Procura+ Award in 2021, you are right! Do you want to join their ranks in 2022! Then Apply Now!

Public authorities can start to prepare and submit their candidacies for the 2022 edition of the Procura+ Awards from today! The awards give prestigious recognition of public purchases (and related initiatives) that have achieved remarkable economic, environmental and social impacts, or include circular or innovation elements. The Procura+ Awards are an initiative of ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. The application period is open until 31 March 2022.

The categories for this year's edition are:

• Sustainable Procurement of the Year
• Innovation Procurement of the year
• Circular Procurement of the Year (new)
• Procurement Initiative of the year

Winners of the awards will receive a unique trophy and will have ample opportunities to promote their winning work. Winners will be widely endorsed through a variety of ICLEI publications and communication channels. Furthermore, a case studies will be published and showcased on the Sustainable Procurement Platform and the Innovation Procurement Platform.

Participants in previous editions of the awards have highlighted that taking part in the Procura+ Awards helped them to benchmark themselves and to gain visibility for their work and achievements. For winners, it remains an excellent way to prove their commitment to sustainability and innovation, as well as to earn internal and external recognition. 

Read about the 2021 Procura+ Award winners and runners up here.

The StratKIT project has developed eight recommendations on Sustainable and Healthy School Food Procurement for national and EU policy makers as part of the Procura+ City Interest Group on School Food Procurement. These recommendations support the EU Farm to Fork Strategy and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The recommendations are based on the views and experiences of a number of local and national experts, the policy advocacy work of the EU Food Policy Council and further research. ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability is the main author.

Food is a central element in our lives and it plays an especially crucial role in the quality of our children’s lives and their growth. As kids spend most of their time at school, school food procurement should be at the top of the priority lists for policy making. Healthy and sustainable diets and lifestyles should be rights granted to every child to reach their full potential. However, most European schools base their purchasing decisions on the cheapest price only, leaving limited margin for environmental and social sustainability.

Considering that today’s food systems account for 21-37% of total greenhouse gases (IPCCC, 2019) and are a primary cause of environmental degradation, socio-economic and health inequalities, it is the policy makers’ duty to address this issue. The EU’s position of the EU Farm to Fork Strategy recognizes the relevant role of public food procurement can play in supporting a food systems transition. The Stratkit project has developed its recommendations within this context. Their core elements are:

1. Establishing a favourable policy framework
2. Integrating national health/nutrition dietary guidelines
3. Creating minimum mandatory public procurement criteria for school food embracing sustainability and health
4. Restructuring public procurement to create and maximising synergies
5. Fostering cooperation from farm to fork with and among small-scale farmers and social economy enterprises
6. Boosting local and regional development through sustainable and healthy food procurement
7. Encouraging and enabling education about food systems and healthy diets to be included in school curricula
8. Channeling resources to help bridge gaps

The Recommendations on Sustainable and Healthy School Food Procurement can be downloaded here

On 1 December, ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability organised a market dialogue event for public procurers across Europe within the European Commission’s Big Buyers for Climate and Environment Initiative, taking place in the City of Oslo (Norway). It focused on innovative solutions to tackle emissions from construction works and convened market representatives from the Machinery, Contracting and Energy & technology fields for in-person networking and exchange. The public procurers gathered valuable market intelligence on the state of the art, remaining barriers and suitable actions to accelerate the transition to emission-free construction works. The market dialogue further conveyed the aggregated ambition and demand of the Big Buyers working group (17 European public authorities) to principal market actors in the EU construction industry.

Representatives from the Procura+ participants Oslo and Copenhagen presented their approach on zero-emission construction sites to suppliers, including the strategies used to pilot and scale up the use of fossil-free and emission-free machinery on public construction sites. The C40 Clean Construction Program was also presented to demonstrate the global dimension of the trend towards emission-free construction works.

Afterwards, suppliers had the chance to pitch their current market capacity and innovation for emission-free construction solutions. MGF (the Norwegian Construction Machine Manufacturers Association) accompanied by Rosendal, Volvo, Poncat and Nasta started with the state of the market for emission-free machinery in Norway, followed by CECE (the European Construction Machine Manufacturers Association), on decarbonising construction machinery from a European perspective. Veidekke and Nordkysten respectively introduced a Norwegian and a Danish contractor’s perspective, demonstrating the multiple benefits on worker health, noise, and even construction timelines that led to their organisations interest in emission-free solutions. FIEC (the European Construction Industry (Contractor) Federation) provided insights in the European policy perspective of fossil-free construction sites, while Moog Construction focused on high performance Zero-Emission vehicles and automation to increase productivity on sites. Ballard Power Systems Europe and SuperCharge concluded the round of pitches with their presentations on innovative solutions for supplying power to zero emission construction sites.

A panel discussion on opportunities and challenges for zero-emission construction sites in Europe rounded up the plenary programme. 

The market dialogue ended with lively group discussions between buyers and suppliers on the enabling framework for emission-free construction in Europe as well as technology and innovation for zero-emission solutions.

In 2022, the zero-emission construction sites working group will continue to jointly engage market stakeholders, work together to align their procurement procedures, and will collaborate to deliver outcomes that serve to share their learnings with other procurers.

The winners of the 2021 Procura+ Awards were announced on 23 November in a virtual awards ceremony, live streamed on YouTube. The Province of Zeeland in the Netherlands won in the category “Procurement Initiative of the Year", while the cities of Copenhagen and Odense (Denmark) won “Sustainable Procurement of the Year”. The categories “Innovation Procurement of the Year” and “Outstanding Innovation Procurement in ICT" both saw Spanish winners: Santiago de Compostela City Council and Murcia Health Services, respectively.

The Province of Zeeland won “The Procurement Initiative of the Year” for its commitment to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with each purchase it makes in the period 2021-2024. Based on existing policy goals, ability to monitor progress, and in alignment with local initiatives, this work focuses on seven SDGs. For each of these seven goals, concrete impact targets were embedded in the province's Sustainable Procurement Plan 2021-2024, and monitored results will be shared on their sustainable procurement platform.

“Sustainable Procurement of the Year” winners Copenhagen & Odense also used the SDGs as a guide. Copenhagen applied an SDG tool developed by the City of Odense to help suppliers identify the SDGs they are contributing to during market dialogue exercises, and to provide a framework for tenders. The city used this tool to introduce further social and environmental considerations into its food procurement.

Santiago de Compostela City Council won “Innovation Procurement of the Year” for using innovation procurement to develop innovative solutions to improve services to citizens, while respecting the complex and specific needs encountered as a World Heritage City. Three challenges in particular were identified: municipal solid waste (MSW) management, last mile logistic services, and ornamental lighting solutions which enhance the value of heritage while saving energy.

Finally, in the category “Outstanding Procurement in ICT”, the winner was Murcia Health Service. Murcia was part of the European project InDemand which brought together procurers from three different regions to a new co-creation model (InDemand) to improve communication between doctors and epilepsy patients. Murcia Health Services led one of the 22 innovation projects that have tested this model, leading to a 50% increase in patient satisfaction and a quality of life improvement of 2.5 points.

During the ceremony the finalists in each four categories were also acknowledged. These were as follows:

• “Procurement Initiative of the Year” - the City of Helsinki (Finland) – ICLEI Member (Towards carbon neutral municipalities and regions using carbon footprint criteria to promote sustainable public procurement),
• “Sustainable Procurement of the Year” – Dinan Agglomeration (France) (Low environmental impact cleaning services)
• “Innovation Procurement of the Year” – Supreme Audit Office City of Prague (Czech Republic) (Building net-zero energy innovation through procurement in construction in the centre of Prague)
• “Outstanding Innovation Procurement in ICT” – Barcelona Provincial Council (Spain) (Procurement of innovation to improve telecare services)

In the category “Sustainable Procurement of the Year”, there was also an honorable mention for the South Moravian Region (Czech Republic) identifying the need to build a new sanitarium for children with respiratory diseases challenged the market to be as aesthetic, user-friendly, and energy-efficient as possible.

The jury for this years’ Procura+ Awards comprised of Katharina Knapton-Vierlich, Head of Unit, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, European Commission; Erika Bozzay, Senior Policy Advisor, OECD; Johanna Enberg, Strategist Innovation Procurement, Swedish Competence Centre for Innovation Procurement; and Mark Hidson, Global Director, ICLEI's Sustainable Procurement Centre.

The Procura+ Awards are an initiative of ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, in cooperation with the EU-funded Procure2Innovate project. The awards reward successful, already running, sustainable and innovative public procurements. The application period for the 2022 Awards will open soon. The 2021 awards ceremony was held online and can be viewed here.

More details on the procurement initiatives of this year’s winners and finalists can be found on the Procura+ website.

The 2021 Procura + Awards winners will be revealed in an online ceremony on 23 November 2021 (10:00 – 11:30 CET), to be live-streamed on YouTube. You can watch the ceremony here.

The Procura + Awards, an initiative of ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, in cooperation with the EU-funded Procure2Innovate project, reward successful, already running, sustainable and innovative public procurements. Public authorities compete in four different categories: Procurement Imitative of the Year, Innovation Procurement of the Year, Outstanding Innovation Procurement in ICT and Sustainable Procurement of the Year.

In the category ‘Procurement Initiative of the Year’ the finalists competing for the Award are the Province of Zeeland (the Netherlands) and the City of Helsinki (Finland). The former is praised for using the SDG’s as the compass of all its purchases, while the Finnish capital is using carbon footprint criteria to promote sustainable public procurement, aiming to take into account the various climate impacts of procurement.

The Supreme Audit Office of the City of Prague (Czech Republic) is a finalist in the category ‘Innovation Procurement of the Year’ for including Building Information Modeling (BIM) in its tender documents to build its first permanent seat with the lowest appropriate life-cycle costs. It is joined by the Santiago de Compostela City Council (Spain) which showed it can use procurement to develop innovative solutions for its citizens, while respecting the complex and specific needs of being a World Heritage City.

In the category ‘Outstanding Innovation Procurement in ICT’ two Spanish authorities are competing for the win. Murcia Health Service (Murcia) used a co-creation model to improve communication between doctors and epilepsy patients, bringing together procurers from three different regions (Paris, Murcia, Oulu) via the European project InDemand. The Barcelona Provincial Council used innovation procurement to improve its telecare services. The tender identified the challenges, but left it up to the bidders to decide how to address them.

Finally, in the category ‘Sustainable Procurement of the Year’, the City of Copenhagen (Denmark) introduced social and environmental considerations into its food procurement, guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The Agglomeration of Dinan (France) created a tender for cleaning services, aiming to not harm the environment, support access to employment and to enable companies of different sizes to apply. They are joined by the South Moravian Region (Czech Republic), which identified the need to build a new sanitarium for children with respiratory diseases and challenged the market with the ambition of making it as aesthetic, user-friendly, and energy-efficient as possible.

The entries for the 2021 Procura+ Awards were assessed by a jury of four procurement experts and policy makers. They are:

• Erika Bozzay, Senior Policy Adviser at the Infrastructure and Public Procurement Division, OECD
• Johanna Enberg, Strategist Innovation Procurement, National Agency for Public Procurement, Sweden
• Katharina Knapton-Vierlich, Head of Unit, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, European Commission
• Mark Hidson, Global Director ICLEI's Sustainable Procurement Centre

The jury will reveal its winners on 23 November. The online ceremony will take place form 10:00 – 11:30 (CET).

More details on each of this year’s finalists can be found on the Procura + website. There you will also find more information about the winners from previous years.

The Procura + Awards Ceremony will be live-streamed on ICLEI's YouTube channel. Register here to receive the YouTube link shortly before the event.