WEBINAR: European Union Green Public Procurement Policy and Ecolabel

Published on January 9, 2017

The webinar on legal framework, communication practices, sustainable procurement criteria of the EU Commission Green Public Procurement policy. It covers the EU Ecolabel and its development process.

The original information about the webinar

DATE: 9 January 2017

RECORDING: You can access the webinar here.

This presentation authored by Mr. Robert Kaukewitsch and Mr.Jiannis Kougoulis (EU) features the EU GPP Policy and Ecolabel. It is extracted from the Asia Pacific GPPEL high-level training workshop held in December 2016 in Beijing, China, co-organized by UN Environment and China Environmental United Certification Center(MEP CEC), in the framework of the “Strengthening the capacities and improving the knowledge on green public procurement and eco-labelling in the ASEAN 3 region” project.

Legal Framework – the public procurement directives of the EU

Adopted in 2014, to be transposed into national law by April 2016
Rules on how to purchase, not what to purchase
Setting of environmental requirements possible for products, services and works to be purchased
Link to the subject matter!
Clear reference to the possibility to require certain production processes

Two levels of criteria in Green Public Procurement

Core criteria:

Aim at addressing the key environmental impacts
Require minimum additional verification effort or cost increases.

Comprehensive criteria:

Aim at purchasing the best environmental products available on the market
Possibly requiring additional verification efforts or a slight increase in cost compared to other products with the same functionality.

GPP criteria are largely based on standard Type I ecolabels. It is however not allowed to ask for products to have a specific label.

Sustainable Public Procurement

The One Planet Network Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) programme is a voluntary global multi-stakeholder partnership in which various parties - governmental, non-governmental, public and private, agree to work together in a systematic way with the aim to promote and accelerate the implementation of sustainable public procurement globally as a way to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

Read more about the One Planet network Sustainable Public Procurement Programme: https://www.oneplanetnetwork.org/sustainable-public-procurement

Download full presentation from the webinar here.

Unsplash - Roman Synkevych