Public authorities, organisations and experts shared their experiences, practical knowledge and initiatives on how to undertake sustainable procurement and procurement of innovation in key topic areas. Click on one of the session titles below to read more information about the individual sessions:

Room: Guislain

Good quality infrastructure is a key ingredient for sustainable development. All countries need efficient transport, sanitation, energy and communications systems. Public procurement is one of the instruments that can be used by International Financial Cooperation to achieve sustainability. Programmes from the KfW and AfD spend Billions of Euros and therefore have an enormous potential to drive sustainable markets. But how can sustainable procurement be used to trigger the potential?

The session presented mechanisms for incorporating sustainable procurement into financial cooperation programmes and gave an insight on the challenges that environmentally and socially responsible public procurement brings.

Facilitator:

• Philipp Tepper, Coordinator, Sustainable Economy and Procurement, ICLEI, Germany - Presentation [PDF]

Speakers:

• Albrecht Wald, Principle Manager, Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), Germany - Presentation [PDF]
  
• Benoit Chassatte, Agence Française de Développement (AFD), France - Presentation [PDF]

Room: Bauwens

Emergency service vehicles, by their nature, are some of the most visible public vehicles in our towns and cities and can be an influence for change in other sectors. FIRED-uP is focusing on innovation as a way of improving the environmental performance of fire service fleets. The project is targeting environmental improvements in firefighting vehicles.  This session showed how the work of the project could help other organisations to investigate and adopt innovative solutions – both in the vehicles/emergency services sector and other fields. London Fire Brigade and the City and Fire Brigade of Ghent shared their experience of investigating innovation in the market, involving end-users in sustainability challenges, using competitive dialogue to establish framework agreements and piloting new technology within their fleets.

Participants shared practical knowledge and initiatives on how to undertake sustainable procurement and PPI, and discuss the challenges it brings. The session also provided an introduction to the FIRED-uP framework agreements for telematics and second line vehicles, which other buyers can access to save time and resources. Questions about the technical and practical aspects of innovation procurement were addressed and participants were invited to submit these in advance of the session to the facilitator.

Facilitator:

• Nick Brennan, FIRED-uP Project Manager, London Fire Brigade, United Kingdom - Presentation [PDF]

Speakers:

• Lies Helsloot, FIRED-uP Project Manager, City of Ghent and Fire Brigade Ghent, Belgium
  
• Robert Whitmore, Engineering (Fleet and Equipment) Manager, London Fire Brigade, United Kingdom
• Christophe Veys, Coordinator, IWT (Flemish Innovation Agency),  Belgium

Room: Baekland 1

Public authorities purchase a large variety of timber products. Making sure that these are legally and sustainably sourced, especially when originating from tropical regions, is a major challenge. European local governments increasingly recognise the huge role they can play in driving the market for sustainably produced timber, by demanding that the wood products they procure come from sustainably managed forests – whether the forests are tropical or European.

The European Sustainable Tropical Timber Coalition (EU STTC) aims to boost the market for sustainable tropical timber - with public procurement seen as a key tool. It brings together partners from local, regional and national governments, as well as from the private sector. Since the launch in November 2013 European local authorities have developed action plans and carried out first procurement activities. The City of Barcelona presented their progress and a moderated discussion gave the audience a chance to input into the further development of the tools and goals of the initiative.

Facilitator:

• Mark van Benthem, Senior Advisor, European Sustainable Tropical Timber Coalition - Presentation [PDF]

Speakers and panellists:

• Peter Defranceschi, Head of ICLEI Brussels Office, ICLEI, Germany - Presentation [PDF]
• Félix Romero, Regional Director, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Europe - Presentation [PDF]
• Helena Estevan, Project Manager, EcoInstitut Barcelona, Spain - Presentation [PDF]
• Thorsten Arndt, Head of Communications, PEFC International, PEFC

Room: Baekland 2

Using sustainable procurement to reach broader policy objectives of an organisation is a significant step forward for the role of procurement in an organisation. This step can be used to highlight a local government’s commitment to embedding sustainability issues into procurement and ensures that its spending power supports sustainable development across the organisation. Several local governments throughout Europe are actively integrating public procurement into broader organisational policy objectives  such as tackling climate change, energy-efficiency, innovation, promoting SMEs and social entrepreneurship.  In this session, experts from pioneering local governments shared their experience and discussed the potential to contribute to key broader challenges through procurement.

Facilitator:

• Peter Woodward, Quest Associates

Speakers:

• Mar Campanero, Coordinator, Sustainable City Council, Barcelona City Council, Spain - Presentation [PDF]
• Koen Bogaert, Managing Director, Publiganda
• Maarten Ameloot, Audiovisual Consultant, Play
• Aline De Tremerie, Director of Procurement, City of Ghent, Belgium
• Bruno Pessendorffer, Marketing and Communication Manager, TMVW - Presentation - [PDF]

Room: Baekland 3

Many European cities want to improve the quality of lighting in their public spaces in order to improve urban safety, achieve greater energy efficiency and create a better quality of life for their citizens. But how can public procurers identify new, eco-innovative lighting solutions within their role as public sector purchasers? Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) and Procurement of Innovation (PPI) prove to be useful tools, as they allow public procurers to act as technologically demanding first buyers to meet their needs, and in doing so, drive innovation from the demand side.
 
This session explored how the City of Espoo a partner in the ENIGMA (Enlightenment and Innovation ensured through Pre-Commercial Procurement in Cities) Project, is using PCP as a tool to procure more innovative lighting solutions for their city. The ProLite (Procurement of Lighting Innovation and Technology in Europe) Project presented results of an investigation into how public sector organisations can use PPI to overcome organisational and procurement barriers to deliver innovative and cost-effective technologies for their organisations, while simultaneously supporting economic growth. Additionally, this session  facilitated a discussion between the European Commission and city representatives, on how best to approach PCP and PPI as tools to find innovative lighting solutions.

Facilitator:

• Antoinette Franklin, Officer, Sustainable Economy and Procurement, ICLEI, Germany

Speakers:

• Lieve Bos, Policy Officer, Innovation Unit, DG CONNECT, European Commission - Presentation [PDF]
• Jussi Lehtinen, Senior Planning Officer, City of Espoo, Finland - Presentation [PDF]
• Leon Smith, Commercial Project Manager: Innovation, Transport for London, PRO-LITE, United Kingdom - Presentation [PDF]

Room: Van der Goes

Sustainable procurement is a powerful driver for delivering improved economic, environmental and social outcomes. However, a big challenge in delivering strategic sustainable aspirations through public procurement lies in knowing what impact sustainable procurement practices have.

The big question that remains is how to generate a methodology that produces meaningful measures of sustainability that can be used within the procurement process? What are the major challenges for public authorities to track and quantify environmental, social and economic performance effectively? This session sought to better understand how the impact of sustainable procurement can be measured by presenting a mix of procedures, methods, and tools and how these can be embedded in the procurement process.

Facilitator:

• Adam Wilkinson, Owner, Impact measurement Limited and LM3Online - Presentation [PDF]

Speakers:

• Karine Van Doorsselaer, Professor, Sustainable Product Design, University of Antwerp, Belgium - Presentation [PDF]
• Bettina Schaefer, Project Manager, Ecoinstitut Barcelona, Spain - Presentation [PDF]
• Bernard Mazijn, UNU-CRIS-Going for Sustainable Development, Institute for Sustainable Development, Ghent University - Video Presentation [Youtube]
• Johan Van Der Biest, CEO, Wienerberger

Room: Jan Van Eyck

The catering sector is significant for public authorities, not only in terms of money spent, but also in terms of sustainability impact. The EIPRO report identified food and drink as one of the three product areas with the highest environmental impact. Environmental impacts related to public catering services (e.g. school, office, hospital canteens, event catering, vending machines) include waste generation, high consumption of energy and water, pollution of water resources and emissions of exhaust gases from vehicles. This session explored different approaches being taken by public authorities to reduce these impacts.

Facilitator:

• Katrien Verbeke, Deputy Direction Department Environment, City of Ghent, Belgium - Presentation [PDF]

Speakers:

• Gaynor Whyles, Director, JERA Consulting, UK - Presentation [PDF]
  
• Mark Stein, Postgraduate Researcher, Salford University Business School, UK - Presentation [PDF]
• Maureen Vande Cappelle, Ethical Vegetarian Association (EVA), Belgium

Room: Hubert Van Eyck

Governments around the world are facing the challenge of addressing unsustainable patterns of consumption and production. The circular economy seeks fundamentally new models of production and consumption to de-link rising prosperity from resource consumption growth.

But what does this mean in everyday practice in public procurement? Can waste become a valuable asset and input to another process; should we lease or re-sell waste? How do we reformulate contracts to include reuse, repair, recycle or refurbish and what challenges do we meet in practice? Practical pilots provided input for an interesting debate on how to implement circularity in the real life of procurement.

Facilitator:

• Michel Schuurman, Senior Programme Manager, CSR Netherlands, Netherlands - Presentation [PDF]

Speakers:

• Tim Luckett, Project Manager, Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), UK - Presentation [PDF]
• Joan Prummel, Category Manager, Waste and Resources, Netherlands Enterprise Agency - Presentation [PDF]
• Pål Mårtensson, Coordinator Department of Sustainable Waste and Water City of Gothenburg, Göteborg, Sweden
• Jiska Verhulst, Network Manager, Plan C, Belgium
• Tom Domen, International Marketing Manager, Ecover - Presentation [PDF]