Green Procurement Principles

Green Public Procurement (GPP) is 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.

The basic concept of GPP relies on having clear, verifiable, justifiable and ambitious environmental criteria for products and services in the public procurement process, based on a life-cycle approach and scientific evidence base. The European Commission and a number of EU Member States have developed guidance in this area, in the form of national GPP criteria. These are based on data from an evidence base, on existing ecolabel criteria and on information collected from stakeholders of industry, civil society and Member States.

The evidence base uses available scientific information and data, adopts a life-cycle approach and engages stakeholders who meet to discuss issues and develop consensus.

The GPP approach is to propose two types of criteria for each sector covered:

• the core criteria, which are suitable for use by country, address the key environmental impacts, and are designed to be used with minimum additional verification effort or cost increases;
• the comprehensive criteria, which are suitable for those who wish to purchase the best environmental products available on the market, and may require additional verification effort or a slight increase in cost compared to other products with the same functionality.

GPP does not set out to detail each and every aspect of a product’s life cycle. Rather, by judicious use of published ecolabel and/or life cycle information, it focuses on key aspects.

Overall, public procurement can be instrumental in addressing environmental problems such as:

• Deforestation, (e.g. through the purchase of wood and wood products from legally harvested and sustainably managed forests);
• Greenhouse gas emissions (e.g. through the purchase of products and services with a lower CO2 footprint throughout their life-cycle);
• Water use (e.g. through choosing more water-efficient fittings);
• Energy efficiency and resource use (by choosing products which are more efficient and implementing environmentally conscious design principles, e.g. cradle-to-cradle);
• Air, water and soil pollution (by controlling chemicals and limiting the use of hazardous substances);
• Waste (by specifying processes or packaging which generate less waste or encouraging reuse and recycling of materials);
• Sustainable agriculture (e.g. by purchasing organically produced food);

Over the last several years, there has been growing political commitment to promote GPP at international level, with sustainable procurement policies having been launched in many OECD countries outside the EU (USA, Japan, Canada, Australia, and South Korea), as well as in rapidly developing countries (such as China, Thailand, and Philippines). Already in 2002, the OECD adopted a Recommendation on green public procurement, while in the same year, as a follow-up to the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, a Marrakech Task force on sustainable procurement was created with the aim of spreading sustainable (green) public procurement practices. More recently, the 10YFP / One Planet Network Programme on Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) was developed as a global multi-stakeholder platform supporting the implementation of SPP around the world.