Public institutions spend a large portion of their budgets on the procurement of goods, services and works related to the service delivery of infrastructure. For example, public money is spent for the design and construction of new infrastructure, the continued operations and maintenance of existing infrastructure, the refurbishment and retrofitting of existing infrastructure, and/or the decommissioning of infrastructure that has reached its end-of-life.  

Why does this matter in the context of the climate crisis and post-COVID 19 recovery agendas? 

Embedding sustainability in strategic infrastructure planning and procurement processes can yield great benefits to organisations looking to reduce costs and achieve carbon neutrality goals. For example, public procurers must be able to understand, collate and assess the total costs of an infrastructure over its entire lifecycle - meaning not just the initial capital costs, but the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). 

This Deep Dive unpacks various approaches, tools and processes in public infrastructure procurement to achieve carbon neutrality. You will hear from the City of Helsinki (Finland), Western Cape Government (South Africa) as well as UNOPS. 

The session gives you the opportunity to 

• dive deep into best practices around carbon-neutral public infrastructure,
• engage with procurement peers from around the world,
• discuss how to practically apply for example TCO to also achieve climate and post-COVID 19 recovery targets.

Participants of this session might be interested in taking part in another Deep Dive session looking at climate action and food procurement  and high-level plenary session ‘Procurement Leadership means Climate Action’. 

The sessions are organised by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, and supported by the Global Lead City Network on Sustainable Procurement, Procura+ Africa and the One Planet Network Sustainable Procurement Programme. 

19. October - 12:00 - 13:15 UTC+2

Register now!

Although local and regional governments have considerable leverage over several facets of a city-region food system – from nutrition and health to economic development to land use and resource management – few of them integrate food in a cohesive manner across their different thematic departments, or maximize its potential in service of their constituencies. Sustainable food procurement, such as sustainable school meals, is a strategic instrument to address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from climate action to regional value capturing. The recent FAO survey on the impact of the pandemia on food systems in cities listed the suspension of school meals highest (86%) – hence, the importance of sustainable school meals for resilient food systems.

This peer-to-peer exchange offers space for procurers and food policy officers to

• exchange on how to leverage sustainable procurement for the implementation of sustainable food system programmes
• discuss the opportunities of aligning climate action and COVID-19 recovery in the food sector
• learn about the challenges of localising supply chains and the associated obstacles of procurement regulation

Three speakers will share their hands-on experience from the USA and Europe. Afterwards, we invite you to share your own experience, ask questions and connect with one another.

Speakers:
Chantal Clément, Deputy Director, IPES-Food
Tamara Downs Schwei, Food Policy Coordinator, City of Minneapolis, Minnesota
Latha Swamy, Food Policy Director, City of New Haven
Peter Defrancesci, ICLEI
Gunilla Andersson, Project Manager, Environmental Department, City of Malmö

The session is linked to another Deep Dive session looking at climate action and construction procurement as well as a high-level plenary session ‘Procurement Leadership means Climate Action’. The sessions are organised by ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, and supported by the Global Lead City Network on Sustainable Procurement, Procura+ Africa , the One Planet Network Sustainable Procurement Programme and the CITYFOOD Network.

19. October 16:00 - 17:15 UTC+2

Register now!

How much do you know about the new European energy labelling? How much and how will it affect energy saving and everyday life for citizens, businesses, and public administrations?

This Q&A session will answer doubts about the entry into force of Regulation (EU) 2017/1369 in March 2021. The regulation introduces new labelling that has been designed to provide consumers with accurate, recognisable, and comparable information regarding energy consumption, performance, and other essential characteristics of domestic household products.

An expert will explain the impact of this novelty on the market for products such as dishwashers; washing machines and washer-driers; refrigerators, including wine storage fridges; lamps; electronic displays, including television monitors and digital signage displays. A special focus on Green Public Procurement will be provided.

The Q&A session will take place during the 18th European Week of Regions and Cities and is curated by the partners of the BELT European project – Boost Energy Label Take up – funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme, which aims to promote the uptake of more efficient energy-related products.

Find more information on the event here.

Join us for this webinar about the results of one year of collaboration of the three Big Buyers groups in using procurement strategically to achieve the organisations’ climate ambitions. The three Big Buyers groups worked on circular construction materials, zero emission constructions sites and heavy-duty electric vehicles.

During this online event they will be sharing the results of their collaboration, lessons learnt and next steps and ambitions. The webinar will also be an occasion to present upcoming possibilities to interested organisations under the next step of the initiative the ‘Big Buyers for Climate and Environment’ (BBCE).

Side group discussions will give the opportunity to go into more detail about each area of collaboration.

If you are interested, please register here.

ICLEI and EUROCITIES are currently running the Big Buyers Initiative on behalf of the European Commission, DG Internal Market, Industry Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW). The initiative aims to work together with existing networks and organisations active in this area.

For the third successive year, the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) in collaboration with the Service Agency Communities in One World (SKEW) hosts the international Dialogue Forum on Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) from 26 to 28 October 2020.

It will be a virtual platform with interesting insights and lively debates between decision-makers, procurement practitioners, researchers and members of civil society from Europe, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.

In this year’s Dialogue Forum, the focus will be on three components of a professional procurement organisation that make systems more effective to tackle both sudden and more long-term strategic challenges:

(1) The integration of sustainable products and services into e-catalogues (October 26)
(2) Interaction and exchange with the market to promote sustainable production (October 27)
(3) Sustainable procurement by purchasing groups and joint procurement platforms (October 28)

The overarching goal of the forum is to exchange views on concrete best practice examples in the three topic areas and to learn from each other. In addition to plenary sessions, breakout sessions will enable participants to discuss specific topics in small groups.

Among others, Kathleen McCaughey (Manager Sustainable Supply Chains, Region Stockholm), Josefine Hintz and Rafael Hirt (both Officer Sustainable Economy and Procurement, ICLEI -Local Governments for Sustainability), Betina Bergmann Madsen (Chief Procurement Officer, City of Copenhagen) and Dietmar Lenz (Head of Procurement, Vorarlberg Community Association) will give input.

Due to the digital format and to time differences between the global range of contributors, the forum will take place on all event days between 3:00 and 6:30 pm (CET). You can participate in the entire event or just attend individual sessions that are of specific interest to you. The programme is available here.

If you wish to participate, please contact Dr. Maximilian Müngersdorff by October 18 (maximilian.muengersdorff@die-gdi.de) with indicating whether you work in a relevant field of public procurement (public entity, NGO, academia, enterprise).