What is Green Public Procurement?
Green Public Procurement (GPP), also known as Green Purchasing, plays the key role in the EU’s attempt to become a resource-efficient economy and reduce environmental pollution. Public authorities procure services, works and eco-friendly products with reduced environmental impact. The use of GPP is voluntary and each member state can decide to which extent they wish to implement GPP. This type of procurement calls for verifiable and clear environmental criteria for services and products. In order to supply guidance, the European Commission and a number of European Countries have set up more than 20 national GPP criteria since 2008. These are set up in order to contribute to European policy objectives for resource efficiency, energy, climate change and the reduction of life cycle costs. However, more public sector bodies still need to get involved in GPP.
What do the GPP criteria include?
The European Commission created voluntary EU GPP criteria for
- imaging equipment, consumables, and print services
- data centres, server rooms and cloud services
- textile products and services
- public space maintenance
- food, catering services and vending machines
- road transport
- road lighting and traffic signals
- paints, varnishes and road markings
- reduction of harmful substances
Furthermore, ecolabels may be used in public procurement under the EU Procurement Directives. The necessary requirements for the ecolabel are based on scientific evidence and must be accessible to all parties.
Build an environmentally friendly home
Building an eco-friendly home contributes to the reduction of carbon emissions from domestic buildings. The usage of natural resources stands in the prime focus to reduce the carbon footprint and environmental pollutants. For instance, the recycling of concrete from demolition rubble helps the environment and reduces the costs. Other factors need to be taken into consideration such as high quality windows and doors. When poorly sealed, the energy consumption increases. In the EU, heating private households use up 63.6 % of the energy. Furthermore, the consumption of electricity for electrical appliances and lighting lies at 14, 1%. Heating represents 78, 4 % of the final energy consumption on private households. In order to improve the energy consumption, investing in good quality windows, doors, insulation and electric devices with a long life expectancy is a great way to achieve the goal.
The Green Public Procurement is an important impetus for eco-friendly innovation. In order to protect the climate products should be used as long as possible. Electronic devices such as smartphones and notebook computers can be repaired and the rechargeable batteries are replaceable. Opting for green alternatives can set an example.
This week, you can tune in to another IATE goes Audio feature: click below to listen to ‘Green Public Procurement’ explained in English.
References
EC Europa. 2020. https://ec.europa.eu/environment/gpp/index_en.htm. [ONLINE] Available at: https://ec.europa.eu. [Accessed 26 November 2020].
EC Europa. 2020. eurostat. [ONLINE] Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-statistical-books/-/KS-DK-20-001. [Accessed 26 November 2020].
EC Europa. 2020. Ecolabel. [ONLINE] Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/environment/ecolabel/ecolabel-and-green-public-procurement.html. [Accessed 26 November 2020].
Umweltbundesamt. 2020. Economics Consumption. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/topics/economics-consumption/green-public-procurement. [Accessed 26 November 2020].
WDR. 2020. Morgenecho. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/audio/wdr5/wdr5-morgenecho-interview/audio-nachhaltigkeit-in-unternehmen-entsorgen-ist-billiger-100.html. [Accessed 26 November 2020].
Written by Victoria Milhan