Buying green: how public authorities can help save the environment and taxpayers money

The European Commission has produced a Handbook on Green Public Procurement. It explains in clear, non-technical terms how public purchasers, such as schools, hospitals and national and local administrations, can take into account the environment when buying goods, services and works. Each year public authorities spend some 16% of EU GDP, around 1,500 billion, on goods, services and works. If they opt for environmentally sound goods, services and works, they will help the EU reach sustainable development. Green purchasing increases demand for green goods, encourages green production and helps environmentally friendly technologies conquer the market. It also considers efficient use of energy and resources as well as waste prevention, thus contributing to saving taxpayer's money. The new Handbook gives best-practice examples and provides advice all along the steps of a procurement procedure.

Margot Wallstrm, Commissioner for the Environment, said: "Public authorities have enormous purchasing power. If, for example, all public authorities in the Union switched to green electricity, it would save 60 million tonnes of CO2, or 18% of the EU's Kyoto commitment on cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2012."

Frits Bolkestein, Internal Market Commissioner , said: "This Handbook provides clear and practical guidance to local, regional and other contracting authorities in the process of dealing with the new possibilities created by the new public procurement Directives. With this Handbook we respond to the needs of all these authorities to take action to protect the environment by using public demand. I hope that the Handbook will also encourage the sharing of best practices and experiences to further green procurement policies. In this respect, the Handbook already presents practical examples taken from a wide range of authorities across the EU."

Towards green public procurement

The EU's new Public Procurement Directives, formally adopted on 31 March 2004 (see IP/04/150), make clear that public authorities can in many different ways adopt environmental considerations into their procurement procedures. Yet a recent study examining procurement practices in the EU15 Member States shows that only 19% of all public administrations undertake a significant amount of green purchasing (by using environmental criteria in more than half of their purchases). Major barriers are the lack of knowledge to set the right environmental criteria in tender documents, budgetary constraints due to the often higher "up front" price of green products and services, and legal uncertainty.
The Handbook seeks to help overcome these barriers: it explains in clear, non-technical terms how to introduce environmental considerations in the different stages of a procurement procedure. It insists on the importance of taking into account the life-cycle cost of the purchased products, services and works, and it refers to an online database which gives environmental information on some 100 products and services. It also points to valuable information on many national websites and databases and to technical specifications of European and national eco labels.

Handbook (PDF-file)

Bron : Persberichten Europese Commissie