Procurement is a very powerful tool for cities, and can support their efforts of ensuring the sustainability in different activities. The webinar on 26 November presented a range of inspiring examples, from procuring phones and erasers in the office to organising green events and rebuilding social housing under specific circular and toxic-free criteria.
Why should you choose green public procurement? This question, as a starting point, was answered by Anne Lagerqvist, environmental investigator at the Chemcial Centre in the City of Stockholm. She explained in her opening presentation what the green public procurement term means and covers. The City of Stockholm was a lead partner of the project ChemClimCircle directly addressing the procurement subject and exploring the ways how to make it chemical-safe, climate-conscious and circular.
Anne also presented the case from Stockholm and goals of the municipal organisation. Political decisions guide the work through strategic documents, and the city has two strategies both outlining the procurement process.
Satu Turula, environmental expert at the City of Helsinki joined in with a case from the Finnish capital, focused on circular, non-toxic and climate friendly ICT equipment. This pilot was also done in the framework of the ChemClimCircle project, to extend the life cycle of city-procured devices, organise responsible reuse and recycling, and include the consideration of the harmful substances’ management.
Focusing more narrowly on the hazardous substances, Normunds Vagalis from the City of Riga emphasized the criteria for avoiding them, based on the experiences and findings from the NonHazCity 3 project, led by this organisation. NonHazCity 3 offers a comprehensive range of guidelines, tools, and trainings for the entire process from planning, procurement and construction to certification. Illustrating the application of this, Normunds presented the case from Riga: renovation of social housing – a dormitory built in 1970 and uninhabited since 2018, currently under the reconstruction process. This pilot implements green public procurement by including criteria for non-toxic materials, circularity, and climate neutrality in the technical specifications.
And what criteria are needed to organise green events for citizens? Liina Kanarbik, chief specialist in Circular Economy Department at the City of Tallinn in her presentation introduced the guidelines and green events criteria in Tallinn, supported via the BALTIPLAST project. The city has already taken many steps towards ensuring green events, including preparing the Tallinn waste management plan 2022-2026 promoting a move towards circular economy. Current guidelines outline the wide variety of applications where the sustainability can be further ensured, f.ex. using reusable decorations, refillable containers instead of disposable ones, tap water availability, separate waste collection (incl. separate collection of reusable dishes), green mobility for accessing the event.
“Cities have the power in their hands when it comes to procurement. Cities can set the criteria themselves, and sometimes they don’t have to wait for regulations from their governments.”
— Liina Kanarbik, City of Tallinn
From 2023, at the events in Tallinn food and drinks may only be served in reusable containers. Starting from 2024, this rule has been spread for the public events over the whole Estonia.
You can find the full recording of the webinar in our UBC TALKS collection!