The Vorarlberg Environmental Association offers support and guidance in the renovation and construction of sustainable public buildings to all communities in the province of Vorarlberg, Austria. The Municipality of Lorüns was supported by the Association’s GPP advisory service in the preparatory, planning, tendering and construction phases of their latest building project. This study focuses on the contract to build a low environmental impact façade for the local fire station. Assistance with concepts for materials, construction and energy, as well as environmental and legal checks was provided. Furthermore, as part of the tendering support service offered, technical specifications were selected from a list of GPP criteria within “Baubook”, an Austrian ecological building product database. This comprehensive resource includes environmental, energy-efficient and free-to-use criteria devised by the Austrian Institute for Building and Ecology (IBO) with input from IFZ and European Institutions. Over 50 projects in the province have used the advisory service to date.

In April this year, the Town of Lille began a 4-year contract for the maintenance of green spaces in the municipality and the adjacent communities of Hellemmes and Lomme. The framework contract is split into 4 lots covering; grass verges, cemeteries and parks within 2 different zones. In 2001, Lille introduced overall targets to reduce pesticides and other chemicals in order to reduce pollution and promote biodiversity. These targets have been reflected in this tender, alongside many other methods to promote biodiverse habitats including manual grass cutting techniques and the creation of wildlife corridors, buffer zones around water and animal underpasses along roads. The successful design and award of this tender is contributing towards Lille’s goal of phasing out the use of pesticides in public green areas. They are on track to achieve this objective for the whole town by 2014. The strong focus on sustaining biodiversity has helped Lille to become the French Biodiversity capital for 2012.

Following a State Parliament resolution in 2011 requesting that purchases of electricity be from 100% renewable energy sources, the State of Brandenburg published a call for tender requiring the supply of green electricity from January 2014 to be based on a Guarantee of Origin scheme. The electricity purchased by the State is used to power all public authorities, institutions, and universities. This includes over 200 properties covering some 1.2 million square metres of floor space. One of the important conditions set in this recent tender was that the origin of the electricity required traceability and certification. Several companies were able to fulfil the stringent environmental demands, and the final bid chosen did not result in any additional expenditure in terms of price. For future electricity supply tenders, Brandenburg will endeavour to go a step further in their environmental demands and ambitions and trigger the installation of new green electricity generating capacity.

The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), established as a UK independent not-for-profit company in 2000, has been working since 2010 with the Environment Agency (UK government agency responsible for protecting the environment and promoting sustainable development) on the LIFE+ funded programme European Pathway to Zero Waste (EPOW). The programme was developed to test different ways to cut waste in the South East of England. One of these projects has involved working with the Natural History Museum in London to improve sustainable procurement practices through targeting new contracts. Over a period of six months, the EPOW project helped embed sustainability considerations within the Museum’s procurement documents and processes. Procurement consultants worked with the Museum’s team to consistently articulate the Museum’s objectives through the policy and guidance information. Expert advice was also provided to improve a range of contracts and embed sustainability issues within future procurements. One of these contracts was the waste and recycling contract, which is for the effective management and disposal of a range of waste from the Museum’s public galleries, offices and laboratories, in accordance with the waste hierarchy. The Museum is in the process of appointing a new waste and recycling contractor to manage removal of waste. Inclusion of the sustainability recommendations in the waste and recycling contract procedures will allow the Museum to select a service provider that can help the Museum meet the waste and recycling targets set out in its Environmental Management System.

In 2011, Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) signed a contract under a central government framework agreement for the supply of office stationery. Products supplied under the “Government Office Supplies Contract” are compliant with the UK Government’s Government Buying Standards , which are similar to the EU GPP criteria. The contract not only offers GCC a wider range of green products, but provisions made under the contract and by GCC’s Procurement Department make it more difficult for devolved purchasers to buy more costly and potentially non-compliant products from outside the Government Catalogue. Before entering into the contract, GCC undertook a series of measures to reduce unnecessary demand for stationery and reuse existing items. After collecting unused stock from around the Council, a month-long moratorium on buying stationery was imposed. This saved GCC around £29,000 (€34,000).

Using recycled material to refurbish roads usually only applies to the lower layers, using materials such as rubble from demolished buildings. Hamburg’s goal in this example was to recycle 100% of all materials during the resurfacing works on the City’s main street. The bitumen component therefore had to be recycled as well as aggregate materials. The City allowed a group of private companies who originally came up with the idea to test its use on roads not used by the public. After a series of tests, the City was reassured about the quality of the 100% recycling process. A restricted tender procedure was conducted and 5 companies made a bid. The contract was carried out successfully in 36 hours, keeping travel disruption to a minimum. The Municipality saved 30% compared to usual costs for road resurfacing, which equates to approximately €20,000.

In early 2011, Cornwall Council began a project to improve the quality and sustainability of its transport infrastructure. An open procurement procedure was used for the design of sustainable bus shelters to be used across Cornwall and 10 organisations tendered for this opportunity. The use of a request for quotations (RFQ) was an innovative process for the council, who asked bidders to give method statements related to sustainability and low carbon design as part of this procedure. The 6 different bus shelter models designed by the successful bidder included the use of long life, engineered wood with PEFC, FSC and Cradle to Cradle Gold certification for the main structure. Surface coatings which allow the removal of graffiti with water rather than chemicals and the use of energy efficient LED lighting are amongst other green attributes. The manufacture of these shelters will soon be let as a 4-year framework contract.

The revitalization of the Vila D’Este neighbourhood follows the commitment made by Vila Nova de Gaia over the past few years to revitalize peripheral areas of the municipality. Vila D’Este is a densely populated neighbourhood, with approximately 17 thousand inhabitants. It is located in the parish of Vila de Andorinho, which lies within the municipality of Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal. The main objectives of the energy rehabilitation of this social housing complex are to meet current energy requirements, improve indoor air quality, and architecturally rehabilitate the neighbourhood.During the first phase of the project, 766 residences and 31 commercial spaces were rehabilitated, covering a total of 109 buildings. The second phase of the project is underway, which will allow the regeneration of 1319 residences and 45 commercial spaces. Following the improvements, namely the introduction of thermal insulation, improved glazing and installation of shading, the estimated annual energy savings expected from the overall measures are 10,3 GWh/year. The project has the potential to generate economic savings of approximately € 1.3 million/year. In environmental terms, the revitalization will allow a potential annual saving of 4 800 tons of CO 2 emissions.

The Autolib’ system is a follow-up to Paris’ Velib’ bicycle sharing scheme, launched in 2007. Autolib’ is a full electric public car- sharing service for customers and includes the deployment of an interconnected infrastructure of on-street stations for recharging batteries and parking vehicles. Although the City of Paris is the origin of the project, following its experiences in electric vehicles and the Velib’ scheme, it has partnered with 47 surrounding municipalities to ensure a service that can uniformly cover the Parisian metropolis. The scheme intends to deploy 3,000 all-electric cars for public use, initially based around 1,120 citywide parking and charging stations. As of December 2012, the Autolib’ fleet of vehicles has covered over 5,000,000 km since its launch 12 months earlier. This equates to a saving of nearly 630,000 kg of CO2 when compared to the use of a typical passenger vehicle. So far, 65,000 registered subscribers have access to more than 1,800 vehicles spread across more than 670 stations which include 3,900 charging points. These stations are also open for private individuals wishing to charge their electric vehicles.