The EU legal framework for public procurement is changing and moving much more towards the use of mandatory requirements. That means in practice a shift from a focus on how to buy to what to buy. Willem Janssen, public procurement law professor at the University of Utrecht and the University of Groningen, notes that this transformation should ensure that public procurement law should not limit sustainability transitions. Rather, it should allow sustainable markets to flourish.
Janssen was interviewed by ICLEI Europe in advance of its Procura+ Conference, taking place on 13 & 14 March in Lisbon. The Conference aims to showcase how public procurement can (and does!) contribute to more sustainable, social, circular and innovative societies. In his research Janssen focuses on how public procurement law can be more than just a guiding process to safeguard quality and transparency, to also ensure that public buyers can purchase sustainably.
Janssen welcomes the new focus on mandatory requirements, coming out of the EU Green Deal. “We are seeing dozens of proposals and already accepted pieces of legislation that have either product-specific rules, targets or minimum mandatory requirements. This means that increasingly contracting authorities in Europe will not be able to choose for ‘low price, bad for the environment’ options, but they will be forced to contract based on sustainability considerations”. Janssen does however see that these rules are currently very fragmented, and there is still a lack of information on what kind of rules are needed in which sector. “We can’t have a one-size-fits-all, but we do need to be mindful that all these rules work in practice and link up well together.”
Aside from the legal framework, Janssen also notes that it is necessary to make clear to public buyers that while sustainable public procurement may initially cost more, in the long term there will be more financial benefits. Furthermore, for public procurement to truly become a strategic lever of change, professionalisation is needed. That requires sharing best practices and offering procurement professionals training opportunities.
Janssen highlights the role of events such as the Procura+ Conference in professionalising public procurement. “It’s important to gather the professionals that are part of this ecosystem to talk about their challenges and best practices. When contracting authorities, economic operators, academics and public governments bring their knowledge together, we gain a better understanding of sustainable public procurement and public procurement law.” Janssen ends with a call to academics to not shy away from these discussions, to share their thoughts and to make their research more accessible.
The full interview with Janssen can be found here.
'This topic is explored and discussed in the recently published academic research 'Mandatory Sustainability Requirements in EU Public Procurement law' (Hart), published in the end of 2023. More discussion on the potential changes in the EU legal framework on public procurement can be found in the publication, co-written by Janssen, “Shaping Sustainable Public Procurement Laws in the European Union - An analysis of the legislative development from ‘how to buy’ to ‘what to buy’ in current and future EU legislative initiatives”.