The main idea behind the GPP Helpdesk is to promote and disseminate information about GPP, and to provide timely and accurate answers to stakeholders' enquiries. Stakeholders can send their questions by email to gpp-helpdesk@iclei.org. The GPP News Alert – a newsletter covering the latest news on green procurement in the EU plus a selection of good practice examples to illustrate how GPP can be done in practice – is also part of the Helpdesk service. As are the organisation of webinars on topics of relevance to practitioners. As of 2022 the European Commission expanded the scope of the GPP Helpdesk to also cover the social responsibility dimension.

Children and young people spend most of their days at school, making it not just a place for learning, but also for eating and socialising. SchoolFood4Change (SF4C) combines all of these elements to have a positive long-term impact on school meals across the continent. The four-year EU-funded project sets out to redefine what it means to eat healthily and sustainably at school, while also addressing food education at several levels. SchoolFood4Change sees schools as catalysts for systemic and multi-actor change, including but not limited to school curricula. It involves training cooks, caterers and public procurers at city level and aims to create a true ripple effect, impacting up to two million citizens in the 12 participating EU countries.

In line with the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the project develops innovative solutions and tailored, locally adaptable good practices for schools, school meal providers, responsible public authorities and policymakers. To achieve the ambitious goal of enabling community-wide food system change, the 43 partners involved in SF4C – spearheaded by ICLEI Europe – follow a holistic multi-level approach: this entails the development of innovative and sustainable food procurement criteria and methods, the promotion of planetary health diets and cooking, and the introduction of a Whole School Food Approach. This is a defined framework for municipalities and schools that are aiming to create a holistic food culture and bring food to the heart of the school mission.

ICLEI delivers the European Commission’s (EC) GPP Help Desk service on behalf of the European Commission. Providing services such as responding to all public enquiries, publishing the GPP News Alerts, analysing national GPP websites and compiling and revising new content for the GPP Europa website. As of 2022 the Helpdesk covers socially responsible procurement as well.

The International Working Group on Ethics in Public Procurement brings together leading European public buyers of IT as a means for exchange, stock taking, discussion and identification of actions towards a next-generation ethical procurement of IT. This report documents their main activities in 2022.

This is a free new online training course developed in the framework of HAePPI project (co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme): https://haeppi-project.eu/
It addresses the needs of SMEs that would like to take part in this kind of public procurement tenders, but also it is a support tool for public authorities. The training course, free and open to anyone interested, offers an estimated 30 hours of training based on five different modules:
- Introduction to public procurement in relation to SMEs, where you will get a general overview of this instrument, its benefits, and its main financial issues;
- Public tenders, to learn all the necessary skills to understand and answer public tenders, to know how to read a tender and write your own proposal;
- Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions (PPI) & Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP), to learn about the different ways of acquiring innovation through public purchases;
- Tender tracking and support, to be aware of how to look for tenders and where to find external support;
- Project & innovation management, to understand the basics of how to successfully manage and monitor a PPI project.
Students can plan their learning journey at their convenience, as the training course is accessible through an e-learning platform completely free of charge. The course consists of interactive learning materials, such as videos, presentations, quizzes, a set of coursebooks with all the necessary information for each module, and additional readings on different topics of interest.
Access to the course by registering in the online platform in this link: https://haeppi.learning-platform.eu

This guide is a tool aimed primarily at building owners. It presents several routes to integrate the principles of reusing building materials in construction and renovation projects.
The proposed strategies are adapted to the development of public building projects. They are in line with public procurement regulations. However, the general principles described here are also applicable to private contexts and to smaller scale projects, which are generally less constrained in terms of procedures. The main principles can also be transposed to other types of work such as public space developments, landscape infrastructure, etc.

The publication was prepared in order to present circular procurement and circular purchase. Its key topic is sustainable consumption because we all are consumers and the way we buy products matters a lot within sustainable development.

Inclusive Sourcing has become a topic of interest as procurement activities and spend represent a significant opportunity for companies to promote inclusive practices and maximize their “inclusion footprint”. This document aims at (1) building a common definition and ambition for “Inclusive Sourcing”, and (2) sharing a “user guide” providing concrete operational advice on how to begin/construct an Inclusive Sourcing strategy.

On behalf of the EC, ICLEI is in charge of the EC training programme for the period 2022-2024. Local trainers are in charge of implementing and delivering a national training programme. It consists of four introductory sessions based on the existing GPP training toolkit and one specific session covering GPP issues of specific relevance to the country. The training activites will be carried out in ten EU member states:

- Bulgaria by Center of Energy Efficiency (EnEffect)
- Cyprus by Cyprus Energy Agency (CEA)
- Czech Republic by Adam Gromnica
- Estonia by Baltic Environmental Forum Estonia
- Greece by Nthessis
- Hungary by Business Economics Science Education Foundation (BESEF)
- Lithuania by Baltic Environmental Forum Lithuania
- Portugal by Laboratório Nacional de Energia e Geologia (LNEG)
- Romania by REPER21
- Slovakia by creatio eu