The contract for the construction and expansion of the Ludwig-Börne school required the project to meet the passive house standard. The contract was awarded based on the lowest total life-cycle cost of the construction and operation of the building.

Amongst other environmental obligations, public procurers in Tuscany must increase the use of recovered and recycled materials, and as well as technologies, techniques, systems and production processes with a low environmental impact. The Region of Tuscany wished to procure toner cartridges for its own purposes and on behalf of other public authorities. The subject matter of the open tender, worth €4.1 million, was “The supply of consumables for reduced environmental impact printing systems”. Technical specifications, award criteria and contract performance clauses were also used to ensure high environmental performance in terms of chemical composition, remanufactured materials and Life Cycle Impacts (LCA). The Tuscany Region was awarded the Premio CompraVerde Award 2013 for this tender procedure due to the completeness of the tender as well as the accuracy with which environmental aspects are covered in the tender documentation.

Berlin’s police force purchases some 200 vehicles every year. Their most recent tender (from May 2012) saw the inclusion of a number of environmental and economic requirements as recommended by the European Clean Vehicles Directive. In addition to including some basic environmental criteria as a requirement, the contract was awarded based on the life-cycle, energy and environmental costs of the vehicles. The tendering procedure, the first of its kind using life-cycle costing (LCC), including green costs, proved successful and thus will be used again by the police force in the future.

Since January 2010, the European Commission has published on its website a series of examples of the implementation of GPP throughout the different Member States. These examples shall illustrate how European public authorities have successfully launched ‘green’ tenders, and provide guidance for others who wish to do the same. This brochure includes a collection of some of the most interesting examples collected over the years.

The office building “Biberstraße 5” is located in the historical centre of Vienna. Dating from 1901, the renovation was necessary to adapt the building to modern standards.

The diversity of experiences presented in this publication demonstrate that more attention has been given to the social impact of public procurement in recent years, even if there is more to be done.
This publication aims to highlight these particular experiences as well as
French practices, in order to make comparisons, challenge and inspire
European initiatives that support WISEs’ access to public procurement opportunities.

The company Novamex-L’Arbre Vert is based in the city of Poitiers (France) and saw its business boom after expanding its product portfolio to include dish-washing and washing-up liquids, which allowed them to access large retail outlets. They are now the leader on the French market for certified ecological cleaning products and have achieved an annual turnover of 26 million euros. As an EU Ecolabelled company, they are frequently audited to ensure transparency of their business and finances.

This guide aims to present existing ways to combine fair trade with sustainable forest management certification. It provides examples from successful community forests and Fair Trade Organizations which have applied fair trade and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification at the forest and processing level or have fairly traded FSC certified community forest products.

This case study showcases a tender for printed materials produced from recycled paper (chlorine free) or from virgin fibre with the 'chain of custody' certification.