ICLEI

Green Public Procurement

Procuring goods, services and works with a reduced environmental impact throughout their life cycle.

Criteria

Find out about voluntary criteria, green public procurement requirements in sectoral legislation and the process for setting criteria.

Good Practice Library

Library of case studies on green and socially responsible public procurement

Green Public Procurement Helpdesk

Questions? Contact the Helpdesk

What is Green Public Procurement?

A picture with the phrase go green — Photo by Geralt - pixabay

Green Public Procurement (GPP) is defined in the Communication (COM -2008- 400) "Public procurement for a better environment" as "a process whereby public authorities seek to procure goods, services and works with a reduced environmental impact throughout their life cycle when compared to goods, services and works with the same primary function that would otherwise be procured."

While GPP is a voluntary instruments and Members States are able to determine the extent to which policies or criteria are applied, it plays a key role in the EU's efforts to boosting a resource-efficient economy.

GPP is within the framework of Strategic Public Procurement, together with Socially Responsible Public Procurement (SRPP) and Innovation Procurement. The basic concept of GPP relies on having clear, verifiable, justifiable, and ambitious environmental criteria for products and services, based on a life-cycle approach and scientific evidence base.

The European Commission (EC) has been developing voluntary GPP criteria for several product groups. Furthermore, following the adoption of the 2020 Circular Economy Action Plan, the Commission is proposing minimum mandatory GPP criteria and targets in sectoral legislation and phase in compulsory reporting to monitor its uptake.

EU Ecolabels: Labels can play a particular role in developing technical specifications and award criteria, and in verifying compliance helping public buyers to save time in accordance with Art. 43 of Directive 2014/24/EU. More information on EU Ecolabel product groups is available here.

News

EU GPP Webinar

On the 27th of September, from 14:00 to 15:30 CEST, the next EU GPP Helpdesk webinar will take place on "How to acquire circular, nZEB and green building skills". During the webinar, expert presentations will be given and experiences from across European cities will be shared. Find out how public procurement can be used as a strategic tool to support the upgrading and retraining of the construction workforce.

Interview with Lukáš Grůza

Interview with Lukáš Grůza, from the Department of Strategic Development and Cooperation of the Brno City Hall, Czech Republic. Project manager of the Smart District Špitálka and an evaluation specialist.

Image of letters forming the words Plan and Make

Portugal: National Strategy for GPP 2030 – ECO360

The ECO360 - National Strategy for GPP 2030 is a document that sets out the vision, objectives and key drivers for its implementation in Portugal. It promotes the inclusion of green criteria in public procurement procedures by entities under direct and indirect state administration, and the state's business sector. The strategy aims to see 50% of the country’s public administration bodies and public business sector adopt green criteria in their public procurement by 2025, rising to 90% by 2030.

Procura+ Conference: call for contributions!

The Procura+ Conference invites public authorities to showcase their work on sustainable, innovation and circular procurement to over 250 attendees from Europe and the world. Interested organisations can do so by filling in the Call for Contributions by 6 October 2023. The Conference will take place in Lisbon from 13-14 March 2024. The call is open to all public authorities working with public procurement.

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