Mr. Krishna works with the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) as Zero Pollution Industry expert and is focussing on scaling the demand for green steel and low carbon cement demand in public procurement. Mr. Cherhat is a programme manager at Environmental Coalition on Standards (ECOS), overseeing campaign and promotion efforts focused on Green Public Procurement for buildings and construction materials.
What are the EEB and ECOS? How does your partnership work?
With an extensive network of members and experts, the European Environmental Bureau and the Environmental Coalition on Standards (ECOS) are two international environmental NGOs promoting ambitious environmental policies, laws and standards. Our organisations work through a shared mission – ensuring that sustainable construction products become the norm on the EU market.
Acknowledging green public procurement’s (GPP) potential to decarbonize the built environment, we have joined efforts to ensure its potential is fully exploited. To this end, we are collaborating with civil society organisations, progressive industry stakeholders and public authorities to bring out best practices and barriers impacting procurement of low carbon materials.
Why and how is green public procurement important for the decarbonisation of the construction sector?
Buildings account for about 39% of energy related emissions globally, including 28% operational energy use and 11% embodied emissions from the materials and construction1. Between 2020 and 2050 nearly half of the carbon emissions from buildings will come from embodied emissions2. It is therefore crucial to address the decarbonisation of materials and construction in buildings.
Steel and cement accounts for about 5% and 4% of total GHG emissions in the EU respectively, with over 36% of EU’s steel emissions and 50% of cement emissions being linked to construction activities3. It is therefore pertinent to focus on the construction sector to drive the transition in these two industrial sectors.
In this sense, public procurement, accounting for approximately 14% of EU GDP, is the go-to instrument to spark demand for low carbon materials. Public procurers are indeed the largest customers out there. This incentivises a wide range of manufactures to produce low carbon products, including scaling up beyond public markets, with spillover effects onto the private sector. Lastly, switching to GPP not only supports decarbonisation in the construction industry, but also contributes to the overall reductions of GHG emissions in the public procurement process: over ¼ of GHG emissions from the construction sector are emitted in construction-related activities of public procurement (78 million tonnes), and total emissions from public procurement account for almost 11 % of total EU emissions4.
Large consumers, both private and public, need to increase their ambition and shift towards procuring increasingly low-carbon products, which have been long available on the EU market.
In your opinion, what are the challenges procurement authorities face when it comes to materials like steel and cement?
Public authorities are still faced with significant challenges when embarking upon ambitious carbon reduction in their procurement. These barriers are of a different nature.
Especially in the EU, standards are a key barrier, preventing the large-scale deployment of low-carbon cement. This is partially being addressed in the recently revised Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) and Construction Products Regulation Rut (CPR), but it may still take a few more years.
Beyond the market access, capacity and resources to verify and interpret life-cycle assessment (LCA) – through Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) are still a challenge for the 250 000+ public authorities in Europe. While some countries have dedicated LCA tools to support public authorities’ efforts, more is needed. For instance, the creation of an EU-wide database containing robust, reliable and transparent background life-cycle assessment data would provide a comprehensive resource for decision-makers, enabling them to make informed choices that align with sustainability goals.
However, GPP is still not a mandatory requirement across Europe. The lack of an overarching policy framework covering sectoral GPP targets, product criteria and thresholds along with a mandatory obligation for GPP creates significant fragmentation, leaving it up to motivated procurement authorities to design tenders for low carbon materials and drive innovation.
Moreover, fear of increased costs when procuring low carbon materials prevent public authorities from adopting GPP policies. Nevertheless, GPP can be not only environmentally friendly but also cost-effective. Several studies illustrate a marginal 1-5% increase in costs throughout the life cycle of buildings procured with low carbon materials5-6. This green premium can be furthermore reduced on the long term, as GPP measures provide suppliers (especially SMEs) with the much-needed predictability to invest in greener materials and reach economies of scale.
While these challenges pose significant hurdles for procurement authorities, much can be done to mitigate them, including thinking about scaling up policies to the European level to close gaps. This will help local authorities identify truly green products, securing emissions cuts, while following a unique system.
Since many construction materials have a high environmental impact, are there any alternative green options on the market, especially for steel and cement?
Steel produced using hydrogen (replacing coke) as a reducing agent in renewable energy powered electric arc furnaces can reduce the total carbon footprint to lower than 200 kg CO2 per tonne of steel (reduction of about 33%). Likewise, cements with less clinker and more of supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) can reduce the carbon footprint to less than 100 kg CO2 per tonne of cement (reduction of about 80%). Several major producers of steel and cement have already incorporated low-carbon products in their portfolio.
As the demand for green products increases, suppliers respond by scaling up production. For example, steel makers in Europe have signed low carbon/green steel agreements with industrial consumers since 2021 as automobile companies started committing to using low carbon steel in their cars. Likewise, low carbon concrete is being produced by new companies as well as traditional cement and concrete producers for specific projects and regions. These low carbon materials have been successfully used in large infrastructure projects in Sweden, Norway, The Netherlands, France and Switzerland, for bridges and railway tunnels reassuring that these materials offer equivalent or even better performance (environmentally and safety wise).
What measures within the procurement process can a city take to make the switch and implement low carbon concrete or green cement?
Cities can incentivize the commercialization and scaling of near-zero technologies, by adopting GPP policies and prioritising low-carbon products. Steel, cement, and concrete manufacturers have the knowledge and interest to produce low carbon products but stop short due to poor demand. Therefore, making public procurement truly green can only happen via robust EU legislation, as it would create a level-playing field for both suppliers and procurers. So, our advice to public authorities is to support the development of an ambitious EU-level framework underpinned with clear and easy-to-apply criteria.
Additionally, we encourage them to boldly engage in pre procurement discussion with contractors, suppliers, structural engineering firms and architects. This would allow them to better assess and pursue GPP strategies that are even more ambitious than the current EU-level approaches. Others have already done it: the cities of Zurich, Vienna, Berlin are only a handful of successful examples.
For over 20 years already, Zurich authorities adopted green and circular criteria for public procurement of concrete and cement, resulting in 90% of public buildings using up to 50% recycled concrete. This strategic decision has catalysed the local market for recycled concrete, giving rise to 10 local producers. It also had a ripple effect on the private sector, as over 50% of the concrete used in private projects is now based on recycled aggregates.
The use of GPP criteria has also resulted in annual savings of €17 million and over 30,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions in Vienna, while in Berlin it has concurrently led to a 47% reduction in GHG emissions along with a 4% decrease in costs.
Since subnational and regional authorities account for 50-60% of public spending, their active engagement is pivotal in developing green markets, driving innovation, and leading the way towards a sustainable built environment.
1 https://worldgbc.org/advancing-net-zero/embodied-carbon/
2 https://worldgbc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/UNEP-188_GABC_en-web.pdf
6 https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2021/08/Embodied_Carbon_full_report.pd
Details
- Publication date
- 28 May 2024
- Author
- Directorate-General for Environment