City of Tshwane - Using Procurement to Become a Liveable, Resilient and Inclusive City

The city of Tshwane, South Africa, is thriving to become a more liveable, resilient and inclusive city. Procurement is one key tool to achieve this vision. As one of the largest metropolitan municipalities in South Africa, the city of Tshwane delivers services to approximately 3.5 million inhabitants. Tshwane, a member and former chair of the Global Lead City Network on Sustainable Procurement, is committed to driving sustainability action through procurement. The city seeks to use its purchasing power to stimulate a domestic market for more sustainable goods and services, to support resource-efficiency across economic sectors, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of products and services.

A new sustainable public procurement (SPP) profile captures Tshwane’s journey, recent achievements and ambitions for the future, with details on how the city works towards mainstreaming SPP.

A few examples what Tshwane procures sustainably

In 2016, the city launched the Tshwane Food and Energy Centre, an Agropolitan village that supports the idea of self-sufficiency of the city in terms of food production, supporting local supply chains to deliver fresh and affordable vegetables and poultry to the local population. Given its strong success, the city is looking into its replication in 6 other locations across the Tshwane metropolitan area.

The city is now looking into opportunities to integrate informal litter pickers in the implementation of their recycling projects. This will ensure that any public purchases regarding recycling benefit those informal economy workers.

Already, the city’s procurers are encouraged to systematically include green requirements in all tenders e.g. by including green requirements in tenders as pass/fail minimum criteria. Looking at the built environment the city has committed to applying the SANS 204 national standards for energy efficiency and environmental sustainability for all new and refurbished municipal buildings. The City of Tshwane is aiming to operationalise sustainability in the procurement of ICT and vehicle fleet by

• applying sustainability criteria into procurement processes and tender specifications;
• building the capacity of technical staff and procurement officials;
• providing guidance on how to practically implement sustainable public procurement.

Looking ahead the city of Tshwane aims to

• develop Sustainable Procurement Policy specifications and guidelines to facilitate the
  implementation of the Sustainable Procurement Strategy,
• advocate for the institutionalisation of sustainable public procurement,
• support the local development of the skills needed to deliver sustainable products and
  services which the city’s Sustainable Public Procurement Strategy promotes.

Explore more about SPP in Tshwane here.

Photo: Kyle-Philip Coulson - Unsplash