Green Public Procurement
SOURCE: CIWM, OCTOBER 2009
Scotland's Zero Waste Plan has identified public procurement as a valuable tool for achieving waste reduction, reuse and recycling targets, and has proposed specifying a percentage of recyclate for products being procured, in order to boost demand. The potential contribution from “green” public procurement (GPP) was also noted in the English Waste Strategy 2007, as well as being a recommendation of the CEMEP Report on the transition to a low carbon economy.
However, the benefits of GPP are not limited to meeting targets and stimulating demand. Procurement can also encourage innovation, since setting high environmental standards for products and services stimulates the market to rise to meet them. A key recommendation of CEMEP was to use Forward Commitment Procurement (FCP) – an agreement to purchase, at a set date in the future, a product or service that does not yet exist, provided it delivers specific performance criteria. It argued that this would reduce the risk of overly detailed specifications for capital projects resulting in outdated or obsolete technologies being procured for public infrastructure.
The National Audit Office has criticised the Government's implementation of GPP, noting that most departments do not routinely comply with minimum environmental standards. Others have also questioned whether public sector procurement professionals have the necessary skills to engage with the issues associated with sustainability and the need for innovation. A co-ordinated approach by Government and industry has been suggested as the best way to improve training in this area, and to thereby reap the wider economic benefits of a robust 'green' economy.
AUTHOR: Vincent Brown
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