Green Public Procurement






UNIEP calls for voluntarity in “green public procurement“

On 26 July 2007 UNIEP answered on the initiative of the Directorate General for Environment on Green Public Procurement (GPP):
1. The aim of the European Enterprise Policy is to create conditions in which small enterprises can compete on an equal footing with larger enterprises.  The conditions under which smaller and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) can tender for public procurement should therefore be simplified.  However, the increasing tendency to include “green” criteria in public procurement policy makes the procurement procedures more demanding, rather than less. 
2. GPP – the policy  to introduce “green” criterion in public procurement -  would militate especially against SMEs.  Contracting authorities are entirely free to procure what they wish from whom they wish, but UNIEP sees significant conflicts in promoting these “green” criteria, which SMEs would not be able to comply with.
3. The GPP criteria cannot be related to the general activities of a company, and this could lead to smaller enterprises being stigmatised and adversely affected commercially.  This would be a politically undesirable repercussion, and many of the smaller painting contractors would be excluded from public procurement procedures if such criteria were to be introduced.
4. The requirement to provide life-cycle certificates may be relevant for manufactured products, but is not appropriate for the service sector, or to the size and nature of most of the painting businesses.  Such requirements would only cause bureaucratic and administrative burdens.
5. SMEs already struggle to complete detailed tender documents if they are to succeed in public procurement contracts, and if anything such documents and forms need to be simplified, rather than made more complex by the introduction of new criteria.  The requirement to produce certificates and life-cycle calculations would be entirely irrelevant for the painting and decorating sector. 
6. UNIEP, and its constituent member associations, promote the use of environmentally friendly materials, and significant advances have already been made on a purely voluntary basis. Businesses are very well capable to formulate criteria
voluntarily.