The 2021 Procura + Awards winners will be revealed in an online ceremony on 23 November 2021 (10:00 – 11:30 CET), to be live-streamed on YouTube. The Procura + Awards, an initiative of ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, in cooperation with the EU-funded Procure2Innovate project, reward successful, already running, sustainable and innovative public procurements. Public authorities compete in four different categories: Procurement Imitative of the Year, Innovation Procurement of the Year, Outstanding Innovation Procurement in ICT and Sustainable Procurement of the Year.
In the category ‘Procurement Initiative of the Year’ the finalists competing for the Award are the Province of Zeeland (the Netherlands) and the City of Helsinki (Finland). The former is praised for using the SDG’s as the compass of all its purchases, while the Finnish capital is using carbon footprint criteria to promote sustainable public procurement, aiming to take into account the various climate impacts of procurement.
The Supreme Audit Office of the City of Prague (Czech Republic) is a finalist in the category ‘Innovation Procurement of the Year’ for including Building Information Modeling (BIM) in its tender documents to build its first permanent seat with the lowest appropriate life-cycle costs. It is joined by the Santiago de Compostela City Council (Spain) which showed it can use procurement to develop innovative solutions for its citizens, while respecting the complex and specific needs of being a World Heritage City.
In the category ‘Outstanding Innovation Procurement in ICT’ two Spanish authorities are competing for the win. Murcia Health Service (Murcia) used a co-creation model to improve communication between doctors and epilepsy patients, bringing together procurers from three different regions (Paris, Murcia, Oulu) via the European project InDemand. The Barcelona Provincial Council used innovation procurement to improve its telecare services. The tender identified the challenges, but left it up to the bidders to decide how to address them.
Finally, in the category ‘Sustainable Procurement of the Year’, the City of Copenhagen (Denmark) introduced social and environmental considerations into its food procurement, guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The Agglomeration of Dinan (France) created a tender for cleaning services, aiming to not harm the environment, support access to employment and to enable companies of different sizes to apply. They are joined by the South Moravian Region (Czech Republic), which identified the need to build a new sanitarium for children with respiratory diseases and challenged the market with the ambition of making it as aesthetic, user-friendly, and energy-efficient as possible.
The entries for the 2021 Procura+ Awards were assessed by a jury of four procurement experts and policy makers. They are:
- Erika Bozzay, Senior Policy Adviser at the Infrastructure and Public Procurement Division, OECD
- Johanna Enberg, Strategist Innovation Procurement, National Agency for Public Procurement, Sweden
- Katharina Knapton-Vierlich, Head of Unit, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, European Commission
- Mark Hidson, Global Director ICLEI's Sustainable Procurement Centre
The jury will reveal its winners on 23 November. The online ceremony will take place form 10:00 – 11:30 (CET).
More details on each of this year’s finalists can be found on the Procura + website. There you will also find more information about the winners from previous years.
The Procura + Awards Ceremony will be live-streamed on ICLEI's YouTube channel. Register here to receive the YouTube link shortly before the event.