Green Public Procurement (GPP) has been defined as the purchase of goods and services with reduced environmental impacts. When compared to traditional goods and services with the same primary function, they would have lower embedded environmental impacts.
GPP is, therefore, a policy instrument that aims to influence the government’s consumption and production patterns by setting minimum standards across different sectors.
The symbiotic relationship between public procurement and sustainability has led to the development of various new and interlinking areas, namely: circular procurement, innovative, green, social procurement as well as sustainable public procurement.
The recognition of public procurement as a strategic, market-based tool has led to it being recognised as a means towards addressing Sustainable Development Goal 12, which specifically advocates for responsible consumption and production patterns. This in view of the accelerated rate at which non-renewable natural resources are being depleted.
Malta’s willingness and enthusiasm to address GPP can be traced back to 2008, when Malta accepted the proposal of the European Commission to an “overall political indicative target of 50 per cent per Member State for GPP”, to be achieved by 2010.
A three-year National Action Plan was set up thereafter, together with a national GPP Task Force and a GPP helpdesk.
The first National Action Plan set out targets for 18 product and service groups in a range of sectors for which common GPP criteria have been set at EU level.
The targets set out in the plan were incremental, in order to avoid potential market distortions and to allow sufficient lead-time for economic operators to adapt to the government purchasing policy.
Data compiled in 2017 show that tenders falling under the scope of GPP have become more environmentally friendly by 63 per cent
The National Action Plan covering the period 2012-2014 was the first coordinated programme addressing GPP. It has had wide-ranging results across various sectors. Undoubtedly, it has instilled new environmental considerations for procurement officials and economic operators.
Recent data compiled in 2017 show that tenders falling under the scope of GPP have become more environmentally friendly by 63 per cent. This is a higher scoring than the 50 per cent threshold established by the Commission.
The recently launched second National Action Plan aims at strengthening what has already been achieved, while providing further policy impetus to enhance the greener public procurement function. The second national action plan is aiming to progressively increase the share of the government’s procurement in greener products to 90 per cent by 2025. It is set to be more ambitious in terms of targets, but still adopts a realistic and incremental approach.
In fact, the second National Action Plan sets out GPP targets for 16 product and service groups, when compared to the first national action plan. A mandatory status will be given to the procurement of seven additional criteria, including street lighting and traffic signals, transport, office building design, construction and management, road design, construction and maintenance, sanitary tapware, toilets and urinals and hospitality and catering services.
All of these criteria aim to address waste reduction, water availability, climate change and energy efficiency issues to some extent.
The ambitious approach being adopted for the second National Action Plan goes beyond setting higher targets for the forthcoming years, giving a mandatory status to additional product and service groups and introducing GPP criteria for new sectors.
In fact, the second National Action Plan merits increased importance to the promotion of recycling of construction and demolition waste in the construction and road construction industries, as well as the reduction of single use plastics in the hospitality and catering services provided to government.
While both issues are being addressed at EU level through various other policy instruments, this national GPP plan has also sought to address them by designing specific criteria to address the local specifities of Malta.
The Maltese government, in line with the European Union, has recognised the importance of public procurement as an effective instrument to instill change. This plan will continue to increase the demand for better products and services while also stimulating the private sector to provide more innovative product and services to the private sector itself.
It is only in this way that we can stem the depletion of non-renewable natural resources. It is ultimately our choices that influence the consequence we face!
José Herrera is Minister for the Environment, Sustainable Development and Climate Change.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece