The Procura+ Awards are still open for public authorities to enter and get recognition for their outstanding sustainable and innovation procurement initiatives. An initiative of ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability in its 6th year,the Procura+ Awards commendleading sustainable and innovative procurements from across Europe.
Previous winners underline the important impact the Award has had on advancing their innovation and sustainable procurement. It has helped their procurement department to show within and beyond their organisation that procurement is a key strategic tool to achieve crucial sustainability goals of the 21st century while stimulating innovation.
Cities can win the Award in four categories: Sustainable Procurement of the Year, Innovation Procurement of the Year, Procurement Initiative of the Year, and Outstanding Innovation Procurement in ICT.
In 2019, the City of The City of Zurich (Switzerland) and its initiative to use recycled concrete in buildings was announced was the winner of the ‘Procurement Initiative of the Year’.Zurich has saved around 17,000m3 of virgin materials (and landfill space) through this.
The Sustainable Procurement of the Year Award went to the City of Ghent (Belgium), that launched a pilot procurement for ethically produced workwear in line with the socially responsible requirements in its procurement policy and worked in partnership with suppliers to get the product required.
The excellence of the innovation partnership for decentralised cloudburst management of the Municipality of Frederiksberg (Denmark) was awarded the Innovation Procurement of the Yearprize. And CERN the prize in the Outstanding Innovation Procurement in ICT category, thanks to its open cloud data storage innovation through pre-commercial procurement, whereas the City of Helsinki was the runner-up with its robotisation and automation of library services.
Public authorities can submit their candidacies to the Procura+ Awards 2020 until 31st March. This year’s edition is conductedin co-operation with the EU-funded Procure2Innovateproject. For more information: www.procuraplus.org/awards