Parallel break-out sessions will go into more detail on specific issues, such as innovation and sustainability in the construction sector, sustainable food procurement, purchasing clean-vehicles and training on life-cycle costing.

This session will explore what are the legal boundaries for addressing social issues in procurement, and how can this be done best in practice. The session will link directly to the previous plenary, with a panel of experts debating some of the open questions on the legal framework and how best to implement in practice.

The session will build on good practice experiences from across Europe, as well as the work being carried out within the Landmark and Sustainable Timber Action projects.

• What is possible to do, both from a legal and practical perspective how social considerations may be addressed at the different stages of the procurement process;

• How to verify compliance; and

• Examples to illustrate different steps within the process, the barriers that have been encountered and how these have been overcome.

Facilitator: Peter Defranceschi, Representative of ICLEI in Brussels, Belgium

Panellists:

• Sue Bird, Policy Coordinator CSR, Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, European Commission

• Emma Johansson, Procurement Officer, City of Malmö, Sweden

• Irmgard Freihoffer, Councillor, City of Regensburg, Germany

• Janet Meissner Pritchard, Programme Leader, ClientEarth, United Kingdom

• Dr Matthias Zieres, Lawyer, Kropp-Haag-Hübinger, Germany

    

Information sharing, exchanging good practice and skills development are key for public authorities’ goals of tackling societal challenges and delivering better, more efficient and more sustainable public services through public procurement. To achieve this, a widely recognised strategy is formation and participation in exchange and networking initiatives.

This session will look at the important roles European and national networks play in sharing information, exchanging on good practice and supporting implementation of sustainable procurement. The session will provide insights into how these initiatives work, their importance for knowledge transfer and exchange and how they can directly support public authorities in the implementation of sustainable public procurement.

Facilitator:

• Mark Hidson, Director Sustainable Procurement, ICLEI, Germany

Speakers:

• Vanessa Hübner, Project Manager, Berlin Energy Agency, Germany [abstract of presentation] [Presentation]

• Paula Trindade, Researcher and Project Manager, National Laboratory Energy Geology, Portugal [abstract of presentation] [Presentation]

• Natalie Evans, Project Officer, Sustainable Procurement, ICLEI, Germany [Presentation]

   

Using public procurement practices to help foster market uptake of innovative products and services has very quickly gained recognition as a key policy mechanism. The belief is that Europe has an enormous and overlooked opportunity to spur innovation using procurement.

Public procurement of innovative products and services is seen as vital for improving the quality and efficiency of public services at a time of budget constraints. Yet little public procurement in Europe is aimed at innovation, despite the opportunities under the EU procurement directives. To address this, the European Commission has put in place a number of initiatives to stimulate innovation through public procurement and continues to look at the role of public procurement in driving innovation.

This session will present and discuss some of the initiatives mentioned above, including:

• The Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI) Platform project;

• The Ecopol project; and

• Sustainable Construction & Innovation through Procurement project (SCI-Network).

Facilitator: Dr. Bertrand Wert, Policy Officer, Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, European Commission

Panellists:

• Ignacio Giménez Moreno, Project Officer, Sustainable Procurement, ICLEI, Germany

• Tim Rudin, Responsible Procurement Manager, Transport for London, UK [Presentation]

• Berit Gullbransson, Senior Adviser, SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, Sweden. [abstract of presentation] [Presentation]

Active discussions with delegates will take place throughout the whole session.

Integrating sustainable and local food in public procurement can be challenging. Even if the European Union institutions promote green and sustainable public procurement of food, it can be difficult when dealing with national legislation, which is sometimes very strict. Besides, usually small companies cannot compete with big national or international market players with great economic and juridical resources.

In this session we will discuss the possibilities and obstacles when procuring sustainable food in Europe with representatives from Scotland and Sweden. The Scottish Government has developed a National Food and Drink Policy. The intention of the policy is to procure much more local and sustainable food, which has successfully been achieved. On the contrary, in Sweden there have been many difficulties when asking for many types of quality criteria of food, e.g. animal welfare criteria. In addition, the big supply companies appeal many of the public procurement contracts in the administrative courts. The Swedish Environmental Management Council is trying to help local authorities in Sweden to procure more sustainably. Monica Sihlén will explain the case of Sweden and compare it to the rest of Europe.

We expect a lively discussion about the possibilities and obstacles for sustainable food procurement across Europe.

Facilitator: Gunilla Andersson, Project Manager, Environment, City of Malmö, Sweden

Speakers:

• Monica Sihlén, Project Leader, The Swedish Environmental Management Council, Sweden [abstract of presentation] [Presentation] 

• Robin Gourlay, Food and Drink Industry Division, The Scottish Government, United Kingdom [abstract of presentation] [Presentation]

   

The Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM) recently published a study on the potential for mainstreaming GPP in the Nordic countries.

One of the keys to mainstreaming is raising awareness about life cycle costing (LCC) not only among public purchasers, but also among developers of public procurement policies as a whole. Through a wider understanding of the cost effectiveness of GPP, other policy tools for public procurement (e-learning, e-procurement, standard templates etc.) would be developed further, so as also to support GPP considerations.

This session will present and discuss:

• Apart from GPP-criteria, what is needed for a more widespread integration of GPP in procurement practices and how can this be done?

• What do public purchasers want GPP and public procurement policy makers to be aware of?

• Good examples from both a policy viewpoint and procurement practices from the Nordic countries.

Facilitator and speaker: Isa-Maria Bergman, Senior Adviser, Motiva Oy, Finland [Presentation]

Speakers:

• Ingrid Bjerke Kolderup, Senior Adviser, Agency for Public Management and eGovernment, Norway [Presentation]

   

What are the real costs of products and services on public sector budgets and on the environment? How can these cost considerations be integrated into public procurement decisions?

The training session will introduce participants to the SMART SPP LCC and CO₂ assessment tool and provide examples of how it has been used in practice. Participants will be able to test the tool running an example calculation provided by the facilitator.

Facilitator and presenter: Philipp Tepper, Project Coordinator, Sustainable Procurement, ICLEI, Germany [Presentation] [SMART SPP LCC-CO2 tool example]

(Please note: participation is limited to 15 participants)

This session will examine approaches to implementing socially responsible procurement in two important procurement sectors – timber and textiles.

The session will hear from the Sustainable Timber Action project, which has developed guidance for public authorities on purchasing timber in consideration of both environmental and social sustainability. Participants will also hear practical examples made by public authorities which have included social concerns in textiles procurement.

Facilitator: Philipp Tepper, Project Coordinator, Sustainable Procurement, ICLEI, Germany

Speakers:

• Marieke Abcouwer, Programme Manager, IDH Sustainable Trade Initiative, Netherlands [Presentation]

• Peter Defranceschi, Representative of ICLEI in Brussels, Belgium [Presentation]

• Mar Campanero, Sustainability Officer, City of Barcelona, Spain [abstract of presentation] [Presentation]

    

Public procurement is a key high visibility market which can effectively help to promote and stimulate a broader market introduction of clean vehicles and to prompt industry to invest in and develop clean vehicles.

This session will present and discuss the Directive on the promotion of clean and energy-efficient road transport vehicles and the monitoring report of the Clean Vehicles Directive undertaken in 2012; the opportunities and barriers to purchasing clean vehicles including joint procurement; and support, training and funding opportunities for purchasing clean vehicles.

Facilitator: Melanie Mattauch, Project Officer, Strategic Services, ICLEI, Germany

Speakers:

• Jonas Ericson, Project Manager, Clean Vehicles, City of Stockholm, Sweden [presentation]

• Dr. Magnus Kuschel, Managing Director, Commute Greener!, Volvo, Sweden [abstract of presentation]

    

This session will be a continuation of Accelerating innovation through public procurement (part 1) and will focus on sharing best practice examples on innovation and public procurement. As in the part 1, active discussions will take place with delegates.

Facilitator: Dr. Bertrand Wert, Policy Officer, Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, European Commission

Panelists:

• Paula Trindade, Researcher and Project Manager, National Laboratory Energy Geology, Portugal [abstract of presentation] [Presentation] 

• Fredric Norefjäll, Project Leader, SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, Sweden [abstract of presentation] [Presentation]

• Bjørn Antonsen, Head of Section Energy and Environment, City of Oslo, Norway [Presentation]

Procuring energy efficiency can be a challenge for public authorities for a number of reasons.

This session will explore barriers and mechanisms to achieving value for money when purchasing energy consuming goods.

It will facilitate an exchange of viewpoints between delegates, supplier representatives and two European projects aimed at identifying problems and devising solutions to the issue.

As part of this session, the following will be presented and discussed:

• Intelligent Energy’s Euro Topten Max project, with a particular focus on public sector procurement of electrical items and vehicles through the use of a specialised online search tool and guidance on tenders.

• Results of a survey conducted as part of the EFFECT project, which looks into barriers to energy efficient public procurement from the supplier’s perspective. The focus will be on the market’s difficulties in providing SE European public authorities with energy efficient solutions to construction, transport, office equipment, lighting and healthcare.

Facilitator: Hans Wendschlag, European Environmental Program Manager, Hewlett-Packard, Sweden

Speakers:

• Dr. Angelika Tisch, Engineer, Inter-University Research Centre, Austria [Presentation]

• Isa-Maria Bergman, Senior Adviser, Motiva Oy, Finland

   

This session will look in more detail at the proposed new EU procurement directives and how they will affect SPP and innovation. Questions which have been submitted during the morning plenary will be addressed by an expert panel and there will be time for discussion. The following specific topics will be covered, time permitting:

• Environmental and social labels – effect of Article 41 and Case C-368/10 (Dutch coffee case);

• Life-cycle costing – will the new directives make it easier or more difficult?; and

• Innovation Partnership – new procedure vs. current practices.

The aim is to have an informative and lively debate about the new provisions and what they will actually mean in practice. Participants are welcome to submit their topics of interest in advance by contacting the facilitator (Abby Semple, abby@procurementanalysis.eu) or posting on the Procurement Forum.

Facilitator: Abby Semple, Procurement Expert, Public Procurement Analysis, UK/Ireland

Panelists:

• Janet Meissner Pritchard, Program Leader, ClientEarth, United Kingdom

• Ramona Apostol, Law Researcher, Leiden University, Netherlands

   

What are the real costs of products and services on public sector budgets and on the environment? How can these cost considerations be integrated into public procurement decisions?

The training session will introduce participants to the SMART SPP LCC and CO₂ assessment tool and provide examples of how it has been used in practice. Participants will be able to test the tool running an example calculation provided by the facilitator.

Facilitator and presenter: Aure Adell, Project Manager, Sustainable Procurement, Ecoinstitut Barcelona, Spain [Presentation] [SMART SPP LCC-CO2 tool example] 

(Please note: participation is limited to 15 participants)