BELT has the objective to facilitate the transition period of the energy efficiency label (Regulation (EU) 2017/1369) informing and supporting all stakeholders and to reduce to a minimum errors at all levels of the value chain from manufacturer to consumer. Furthermore BELT aims to promote the new label on two key levels: Primarily raising awareness and informing consumers (citizens but also public and business procurement staff) thus allowing them to make better and more informed choices; and secondly helping manufacturers, distributors and retailers to adapt their practices and use the rescaled labels to push innovation in designing energy efficiency products.

Public procurement can be a key tool in driving the development of innovative goods and services on the European market. The European Commission has decided to launch the “Big Buyers Working Together” project to support collaboration between public buyers with strong purchasing power and promote the wider use of strategic public procurement for innovative and sustainable solutions. By working together and pooling their resources, cities, central purchasing bodies, and other major public buyers can maximise their market power and impact. Under the Big Buyers Working Together project ten communities of practice will be created. Each community of practice will be devoted to the purchase of a specific product, work or service where European collaboration is needed. To support the process of developing more strategic procurement approaches, public buyers will meet regularly online and in person.

In this report, the guidance developed includes a baseline set of recommendations designed to be applied by all cities, and several optional criteria, which are designed to serve as “add-ons” for cities that are already progressing well with sustainable food procurement and/or seek to focus on specific topics or issues. The latter could be anything from climate change mitigation, vulnerable groups, circular economy, short food supply chains, through to regional food economy and resilience. The recommendations provided in this report have been developed to ensure maximum flexibility and adaptability for cities across Europe.

In order to shape a ‘robust and resilient food system’, the European Commission proposed a ‘Farm to Fork strategy’' with concrete objectives on sustainable food procurement and the EU School Scheme related to school food and education. This policy brief provides recommendations on how to achieve these objectives.

Linking public canteens with small-scale farmers allows local and regional governments (LRGs) to bring environmental, social and economic benefits to their territory. It also allows
them to source fresh, healthy and seasonal food for the public canteens from short supply chains. As a result of the work developed in the COACH project and in the EU Food Policy Coalition (see the Farm to Fork Manifesto3), this policy brief makes policy recommendations on minimum standards addressed to LRGs. The objective of these recommendations is to increasingly involve small-scale
farmers in public food procurement

This slide deck aims to help public procurers and policymakers better understand how they can stimulate demand for circular construction skills through public procurement. The deck can be used as a self-learning tool, with links to other resources to learn more about the topic. It can also be used and adapted as needed to help to raise awareness among your colleagues and partners on how they can promote circular construction skills.

Through good practice and replicable examples from Europe and beyond, this document aims to raise awareness among practitioners and policymakers about their ability to promote a more circular construction sector and upskill professionals. It highlights the various levers at their disposal to support this transition

ICLEI and PriceWaterhouse Coopers (PwC) will be organising, on behalf of the European Commission Green Public Procurement workshops in each Member State to provide dialogue between stakeholders on the use of public policy development as a strategic lever for innovative and sustainable public policy development and support the development of a roadmap.

The SYMSITES project aims at developing new technologies and solutions based on the Industrial and Urban symbiosis (I-US) concept, for local and regional collaborations among diverse actors (Citizens, Municipalities and Entreprises) and sectors improving the sustainability of the use of industrial and societal resources starting from wastewater and waste materials.