This report assesses the green or sustainable procurement practices implemented by local government, and environmental sustainability criteria in procurement policies of councils in South Australia.

Vienna is striving to be a leader in green transport. In its e-mobility strategy of 2012, it sets the aim to reduce personal motorised transport to less than 20% in 2025. As a model region for e-mobility it is testing new transportation systems and with SMILE (smile-einfachmobil.at) and MobilCard (mobilcard.info), the city is involved in two projects supporting multimodal transport.

The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen has set its own climate and energy goals. Since 2009 the strategic objective has been to reduce Bremen’s CO2 emissions by 40% compared to the 1990 levels. One of the sectoral actions is to reduce transport related CO2 emissions. To meet its targets, the Senate wishes the city administration’s vehicle fleet to be as clean and efficient as possible. In addition for business trips undertaken by administration staff there is a rule which prioritises more sustainable modes or transport. The order of priority is: walking, cycling, public transport – a car may only be used if these modes are not appropriate for their work.

A Clean Vehicles in Stockholm programme has been run by the Environment and Health Administration of Stockholm since 1994 to speed up the transition to clean vehicles and renewable fuels. In 2011, the City Council approved an Electric Vehicles Strategy, aiming to become one of the world’s leading clean vehicle cities by 2030.

The joint procurement was initiated by the city of Stockholm and the state-owned utility company Vattenfall to demonstrate Sweden’s purchasing potential to manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs), to contribute to a quieter and cleaner fleet and to enable Swedish organisations to buy or lease EVs or PHEVs under optimal conditions.

This paper examines governments’ efforts to use public procurement policy to promote the use of legal and sustainable timber, with the aims of reducing deforestation and illegal logging and encouraging sustainable forestry.

Reading Borough Council identified high levels of NOx emissions resulting from road traffic and in 2009 launched an air quality action plan to try and tackle this issue. In 2012, the Council carried out an open, technology neutral tender for a number of services using eight shuttle buses to link key sites within the Town. Technical specifications set a minimum Euro 4 emission standard (as second- hand vehicles could be offered) but companies offering higher emissions standards scored points in the award phase, as did those who put forward innovative options to improve environmental performance. The winning bidder offered a service using new CNG powered buses, with an EEV emissions standard. The gas used to power the vehicles is 100% certified biomethane produced in the UK. NOx emissions are an estimated 30-50% lower than the Euro V diesel bus models available at the time the tender was launched. The services began in April 2013 and due to a 20% passenger increase, ten buses in total are now used.