The Big Public Buyers Initiative is as a platform for promoting and enabling collaboration between big public buyers on strategic public procurement to help drive the market for innovative goods and services. The main aim of the initiative is to enhance the uptake of strategic public procurement in Europe through partnerships with public buyers. Three working groups will be established, each involving at least three public buyers, focusing on a specific product/sector, where there is a shared public need not sufficiently provided by the current market. The working groups will deliver a tangible outcome such as the development of common procurement standards, the launching of a joint statement of demand, or a joint procurement exercise. ICLEI is running the initiative together with EUROCITIES on behalf of DG Grow.

ICLEI is developing an updated version of the EU Commission's Buying Social - a Guide on taking account of social considerations in public procurement

Cleverciti Case Study: Together with Cleverciti, the energy provider RheinEnergie aimed to improve the quality of life in Cologne (Germany) and reduce emissions in the neighborhood by putting in place an innovative parking management system. ClevercitiSen-sors and LED displays, as well as a mobile app, were introduced to provide real-time, turn-by-turn guidance to drivers, helping them find a parking space in less time.

Cleverciti Case Study: The municipality of Kerken (Germany) wanted to provide commuters and train passengers taking a car to the train station with accurate information about the availability of parking spaces before they arrived. A battery-powered solution developed by Cleverciti solved the problematic lack of 24/7 electricity at six of the eight lampposts.

This GPP Case Study from Smiltene County (Latvia) is about sustainable school furniture procurement using a number of green criteria as technical specifications, such as sustainable forestry, reduced chemicals, provision of spare parts and disassembly requirements.

This GPP Case Study is about the competitive dialogue to procure energy efficient services for sports centres in the Municipality of Getxo, Basque Country, Spain.

This declaration from the german federal procurement office addresses the following questions: How can procurers in public procurement take responsibility from bidders for ensuring that human rights are respected by all participants in complex ICT supply chains? In what way can the contracting authority take on this responsibility for the public sector? How can the requirements be designed in such a way that bidders can take on the required responsibility and are able to submit bids?

There are eight fundamental design strategies in this practical ‘Circular professional textiles’ guide. The collection of information has been aligned with insights gained during the Professional textiles research, carried out by Centexbel, the belgian knowledge centre for textiles, on behalf of OVAM. This guide aims to inspire those producing and using professional textiles and encourage them to include their textiles in the circular economy.

Big Buyers for Climate and Environment is a European Commission Initiative for promoting collaboration between big public buyers in implementing strategic public procurement for sustainable solutions. ICLEI and EUROCITIES are currently running the initiative on behalf of the European Commission, DG Internal Market, Industry Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW). The initiative aims to work together with existing networks and organisations active in this area and is following the successful piloting of three working groups between 2019 and 2020 within the previous Big Buyers Initiative.