2021 Procura+ Award finalists unveiled

The jury of the 2021 Procura+ Awards have revealed the nine finalists for this year. The Procura+ Awards, an ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability initiative, supported by the EU-funded Procure2Innovate project, recognise excellence in sustainable procurement.

In the category ‘Procurement Initiative of the Year’ the jury have picked the Province of Zeeland (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.

Read the full story here.

Copyright image: CC0 Pixabay

Register now: Procura+ Awards ceremony to take place on 23 November

The 2021 Procura+ Awards winners will be unveiled at an online ceremony on 23 November 2021 (10:00 – 11:30 CET), to be live-streamed on ICLEI's YouTube channel. Register here to receive the link next Tuesday. 

The Procura+ Awards recognise excellence in sustainable and innovative public procurement in four categories: Sustainable Procurement of the Year, Innovation Procurement of the year, Outstanding Innovation Procurement in ICT, and Procurement Initiative of the year. The 2021 winners will be revealed during this special ceremony.

Finalists
Procurement Initiative of the Year
- Province of Zeeland (Netherlands)
- City of Helsinki (Finland)

Innovation Procurement of the Year
- Supreme Audit Office of the City of Prague (Czech Republic)
- Santiago de Compostela City Council (Spain)

Outstanding Innovation Procurement in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
- Murcia Health Service (Spain)
- Barcelona Provincial Council (Spain)

Sustainable Procurement of the Year
- City of Copenhagen (Denmark)
- Agglomeration of Dinan (France)
- South Moravian Region (Czech Republic)

Jury
- 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

Read the full article here.

Image copyright: CC0 Pixabay

New podcast series: The Power of the Public Plate

ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability and the UN One Planet Network have developed the nine episode podcast series the ‘Power of the Public Plate'. Each episode explores the story of a champion of sustainable public food procurement. Listeners can hear about how public authorities from around the world leverage procurement to positively impact the food value chain, and ultimately contribute to the development of sustainable food systems.

Even though the power of public procurement is determined by its regional context and legislation, purchasers across the world hold significant leverage to shape the food system. The podcast showcases this perspective as episodes feature stories from the Philippines, Ethiopia, Italy, Brazil, Kenya, USA (x2), Denmark and Ecuador.

Josefine Hintz from ICLEI notes that "public procurers are in a unique position. Their decisions shape how food is being grown and by whom, what meals are being cooked and served to school children, public sector staff or in hospitals. More and more public authorities are realising that they hold responsibility and at the same time the mandate to contribute to sustainable food systems. With the Power of the Public Plate - Podcast we have created a platform for the change agents working for public authorities to share their stories of how to do better. The podcast features the makers, the people that take action, implementing on the potential public procurement holds, to create the change needed - for people and planet.”

Read the full article here.

 More from our projects

ICLEI helps connect market parties to public buyers

As part of its work in public procurement ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainabilty has (co-)organised a number of market engagement activities, including three Pitching to Procurers sessions within the context of the European Innovation Council (EIC). ICLEI contributes to the recruitment of public buyers interested in engaging with EIC companies, helps prepare the challenge descriptions for these sessions to make them attractive to companies, and reviews the applications of companies applying to the session.

The first Pitching to Procurers session was organised on 9 June 2021, together with Vienna’s public transport operator Wiener Linien and Austria’s competence center for innovation procurement, IÖB Servicestelle. The session was virtual and gave EIC beneficiaries (companies receiving EIC funding) the opportunity to pitch their company and their innovations in the field of transportation to the Austrian public procurers, who were looking for innovative solutions to increase the level of passenger safety. From all the applications received, 5 EIC-beneficiaries from 5 different countries were selected

Read the full article here.

Image copyright: CC0 Unsplash

Last but not least...

Copyright © 2021 ICLEI European Secretariat GmbH, Freiburg, Germany. All rights reserved.