Haarlem with a population of 160,000 inhabitants is a mid-sized city located in the northwest of The Netherlands, in the province Noord Holland. A pioneer in championing ambitious targets Haarlem first introduced an action plan to become climate neutral in 2008. The City bases its public procurement work on this ambition. It strives to be a frontrunner in sustainable public procurement and is working hard to transition into a gas free city with a circular economy. Cooperation between businesses, government, knowledge institutions and citizens ensures the City works effectively, innovatively and sustainably.
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160k Population |
 | 2018 Date joined |
Valentina Schippers-Opejko
Coordinator Urban Agenda Partnership on Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement
More information? Email procurement@iclei.org
As a city, Haarlem aims to put its 250 million Euro budget to good use by procuring green, fair and circular. The City has developed an ambitious sustainable procurement strategy that takes a holistic approach to SPP, ranging from climate friendly procurement, over circular to socially responsible procurement. The City is a signatory of the "Green Deal" from the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management that strives to make sustainability an inherent aspect of roadworks and infrastructure.
SUPPORTING SMESThe City of Haarlem wants to support its local economy through procurement and inspire local SMEs to create social value in their operations by employing citizens with difficulty building a career. The City is also piloting new ways of communicating upcoming tenders with local SMEs for example through dialogue to develop tender criterias that they can fulfil. The result of this work with SMEs is to lower the barrier for them to bid.
The city of Haarlem participated in the CityMatch on successful contract management and socially responsible public procurement, hosted by the City of Malmö. CityMatch is an exchange programme for cities for procurement professionals to learn from each other about specific topics.
SOCIAL RETURN ON INVESTMENTSocial Return on Investment is an evaluation methodology that the city applies to all tenders above a value of 200.000€. A contract clause is included in tenders that determines a percentage of the contract value (5%) that the contractor uses to support people with a distance to the workforce into more stable employment. The contractor commits to doing so in a provable way.
When contracting cleaning services the City of Haarlem opts for day cleaning. Day cleaning allows the cleaning staff to better integrate work and private life, instead of working early or late hours. When awarding a contract the City asked bidders to submit a video showing how they would interact with city employees when cleaning their desks, giving an idea of how they would approach this task in a creative way.
For further information on the activities of Haarlem visit their website:
or email procurement@iclei.org
Developing and implementing ambitious procurement strategies as an integrated and supportive management tool for governance.
